Shrimp are the insects of the ocean. They're bottom feeders. So they're delicious, but they're the bugs of the sea.
If you're driving down the street, you keep the neck forward. So that way you can clear out the lanes.
Surprisingly I've never really stolen anything. One time when I was really young, I was walking down the street, found a GI Joe in the mud, and took it home and I was like, "I got a GI Joe!" And then my great grandmother was like, "You stole that." I said, "What are you talking about?" and she said, "That's not yours." I'm like, "But I found it!" She's like, "But it's not yours, and therefore you stole it." So I just went and put it right back in the mud where I found it.
The thing is that where I want to go isn't necessarily tied to what's going on there politically, but I think Vietnam is a really beautiful country. I think Thailand is also really beautiful.
When you're a young comedian the first thing you want to do is get a laugh.
I just got diagnosed with tendonitis which is such an insulting diagnosis. Just point to my shoulder and say "old."
First of all I love Empire Records and That Thing You Do and all the movies he did from that era. He hates when I bring that up.
I think Batman Returns is right for riffs. I love it but it's the ultimate Tim Burton movie. There is so much that happens that's crazy and there are a ton of things to riff.
I can't do Christopher Walken impressions anymore, thanks [Barack] Obama.
I'll get laughs in the places I don't want them and that makes me realize the direction I want to go in. I don't mean to get too deep into comedy here.
Sometimes you're not getting the laughs you want or at the place you want but that doesn't mean it's not funny. It means you haven't explored it enough.
The audience is not your boss. They are your collaborators and when you collaborate with someone you don't have to listen to everything they think or say.
Every laugh is not equal. They come from different places. That's sort of the challenge I go towards, making sure the laughs are for the reasons I want. It becomes a back and forth dance with the audience.
Netflix is very protective with their information .
The audience is your first collaborator with the material. If that makes sense.
I was processing a lot of different things and kind of looking over a lot of things and rethinking my childhood.
The alphabet was invented in Iraq, so it's a cool place.
The Middle East is gorgeous, but again, politically, I would not want to go there.
One time I was really close to Steve Martin. I was too afraid to actually go talk to him, but I'll count that as meeting.
I read recently that I was born in Arizona. I wasn't born in Arizona. I was born in New Mexico, but I can understand why people might confuse those two Southwestern desert states.
Being around Lily Tomlin has been great, how she treats people, how she handles herself, how she goes about interpreting her character or deciding how the comedy should work.
I like being around people who are good conversationalists. When there's a give and take, and you are heightening an idea, exploring it together, that is my favorite thing in the world. I love a small dinner party - let's say six people, max, where everybody's having the same conversation. That's my favorite thing in the world.
I am afraid of abandonment, and, if you will, in a really existential way, being exposed as a fraud. Everyone's afraid of it, and I definitely am. This is a fear that motivates. Oh, and heights. And getting stabbed.
Last season when I was on set...for some reason I had The Battle Hymn of the Republic in my head but I didn't know all the words. It was one of those songs you had to learn when you were younger. It wasn't as important for people raised in the 80's and 90's as it was to people raised in the 50's, 60's and 70's so when I started singing "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," Jane [Fonda] heard me singing it and started singing the rest of it. Suddenly everyone on set everyone was singing. That's just something I can keep in my heart forever.
I remember reading in a comedy book very long ago when I first started, a person said there's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.
