Parks And Recreation: 10 Best Tom Haverford Quotes

Tom Haverford – or rather, Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, as he was known before he changed his name to get ahead in politics – is one of the funniest and most popular characters on Parks and Recreation. And that’s a show with a lot of funny and popular characters, so it’s saying a lot that he stands out so much. Played hilariously by Aziz Ansari, he had a number of classic quotes over the years, and we've gathered the best of them.

So, fans of Parks and Recreation, treat yo selves to the 10 Best Tom Haverford Quotes from the show.

On flowers

Tom looking excited and staring at camera

“Whenever Leslie asks me for the Latin names of any of our plants, I just give her the names of rappers. Those are some Diddies. Those are some Bone Thugs-N-Harmoniums, right here. Those Ludacrises are coming in great.”

Back in season 2, Parks and Rec was still finding its feet after a bumpy freshman year. But at the end of the day, it was still the same writing staff and cast members, so there are plenty of gems to be mined from the early episodes. This quote about using rappers to make up the names of plants is one of them.

On the key to success

“At the risk of bragging, one of the things I’m best at is riding coattails. Behind every successful man is me, smiling and taking partial credit.”

At least Tom is honest. No one can deny that. He knows what his strengths are, and just because they involve being shamelessly dishonest, he doesn’t let that stop him. The problem is that he only ever hangs around with Jean-Ralphio, whose ideas aren’t worth stealing. They might even be worse than Tom’s. Plus, he annoys everyone he encounters enough to put them off him forever, so he’s terrible at networking, which gets him nowhere. There are no coattails for Tom to ride.

On breakups

“She broke up with me. Didn’t really tell me why. Luckily, when you’re the guy, you just tell people she’s crazy. ‘Hey, Tom, I heard you and Lucy broke up.’ ‘Yeah, man. Turns out, she’s crazy.’ That’s what they always do on Entourage.”

Whenever Tom Haverford has an extended monologue like this in one of his talking head interviews, Aziz Ansari uses the opportunity to put his standup comedy skills to work. When a line is this long, it almost becomes a bit, so Ansari can deliver it like one of his standup routines, which makes it as funny as it can be.

On A&E reality shows

“If your job was remotely interesting, there would be a show on A&E about it.”

These days, it seems like every line of work – whether its crabbing or ice road trucking or highway maintenance or some other mildly interesting occupation – has a reality show about it. And as Tom points out, a lot of them are on A&E.

This is a great insult, because there are some really schlocky reality shows out there about some very mundane topics, so for your line of work to not even qualify for that, it must be really boring. It’s quite a put-down.

On investment opportunities

“Make-A-Baby Tuxedo clothing line. A department store with a guest list. White fur earmuffs for men. Contact lenses that display text messages. Invent a phone that smells good. Own a nightclub, call it Eclipse, that’s only open for one hour two times a year. Cover charge? Five thousand dollars.”

Tom was known for having dozens upon dozens of business ideas rattling around in his brain. The occasional good idea was drowned in a sea of terrible ideas. Of the ones he saw through, some of them were dreadful – looking at you, Entertainment 720 – while some actually worked out, like Rent-A-Swag.

On his aspirations

“I want to open up my own club one day, maybe call it something like Club a Dub Dub, or the Club Marine. Sort of a submarine-themed club. Or Tom’s Bistro. The word ‘bistro’ is classy as s**t.”

When Tom pitches ideas like “a submarine-themed club,” it doesn’t seem as though he’s thought these things through before saying them. He’s just making it up as he goes along. Tom did end up using the name Tom’s Bistro for one of his businesses, but it wasn’t a club. It was a classy restaurant that played host to the Pawnee elite.

On DJ Roomba

“I strapped an MP3 player to one of those floor-cleaning robots. Call him DJ Roomba. Little guy cruises around and plays music. What’s hot, DJ Roomba? DJ Roomba, tearin’ it up!”

Who doesn’t love DJ Roomba? In fact, Tom’s inventive use of “one of those floor-cleaning robots” has inspired a lot of the show’s fans to do it themselves. When the little robot vacuuming the floor blares out a hot playlist as it whirs around the floor, it makes cleaning up fun!

This line would be nowhere near as memorable or funny if Tom didn’t name his creation. DJ Roomba sounds both cute and badass.

On playing it cool

Aziz Ansari and Rashida Jones as Tom Haverford and Ann Perkins in Parks and Recreation

“No, I don’t text her, ‘It was nice meeting you.’ I wait eight weeks and I text her, ‘What’s crackin’?’”

When you get someone’s number, dating experts usually recommend that you wait three days before texting or calling them. But Tom Haverford takes that a few steps further and waits eight weeks – a full two months! – before even contacting them. There’s playing it cool, but that’s next-level playing it cool. Tom never really had success in the dating world. Whatever relationship he was in inevitably ended. With ideas like this one in his head, it’s not really much of a surprise.

On download criteria

Tom stares at the camera in Parks and Recreation.

“Every song I download has to pass a series of rigorous tests to answer one simple question: is it a banger?”

Now that we have Spotify and iTunes giving us every song or album ever created at the touch of a button, Tom’s “rigorous tests” aren’t really necessary. They were a few decades ago, when you’d have to go down to the record store and spend your month’s allowance on a single album. Back then, you had to make sure it would be good to be worth your costly pennies. Still, today, Tom has very specific criteria for the songs he downloads.

On budget class

“How do you make any event classy on a budget? Red carpet. My entire apartment is red carpet. On top of that, leading into my bedroom, a second red carpet. Oh, what’s this in my shoe? Red carpet insole. Everywhere I go, I’m walking on red carpet.”

The image of Tom showing the camera his shoe with a red carpet lining the sole is one of the most popular memes to come from the show. Living like a superstar for a small amount of money is what Tom’s all about.