Kumail Nanjiani

I was like, oh, they're great, they're cool.

They're bad at school, but otherwise they're great.

I mean, sort of, not really.

Obviously, my parents wanted us to get good grades, but I did not really have parents who really were those kinds of like, who were really...

I don't remember that being part of it.

I remember it being self-motivated because so much of it was, I think, not knowing who I was or not knowing what I was and thinking, oh, I'm kind of smart.

And so if I'm good in school, that's the only way that I saw having any value as a human being was being good at school.

And so I think it came from that.

Emily always says with me, she's like, the call is coming from inside the house.

And it's all it's been true my entire life.

My parents didn't really push me super hard in that kind of way.

They were like my brother, my younger brother.

I think he's OK saying this.

He did not get good grades and they obviously, you know, he would get in trouble.

But I wasn't like, oh, I can't be like my brother because my parents will do this to me.

They treated us pretty much the same.

We weren't horribly punished kids or anything at all.

So it was always pretty self-generated.

The need to study all the time.

Sometimes my mom would be like, what are you doing?