Fred Armisen Quotes

Avoid people who tell you that something you want to do is not possible.

Remember that there's no one way of doing things. ... If you just get a hammer and hit it really hard, whatever it is, I guarantee you it'll open.

I'm so glad cities have personalities, just like people have personalities. That's something that makes me smile.

Portland is where young people go to retire.

There are so many disagreements in the world, but I like the idea of people agreeing on something like art.

Sometimes I think I'm a really interesting guy.

I loved our music discussion. I live for discussions like that. It's my favorite thing because it means that people care about music, and actually have an opinion. I feel like it's dying. Everyone is just really like, they take a step back, but to actually have conviction about what's good and bad: love it.

I want it all... fast. I want to be married, I want to live together... and then somewhere around a year or two years, I get freaked out. I freak out emotionally and then I actually feel like 'Oh my God, who's this stranger in my house?'

[Paul McCartney] never, at the time, was going back to leaning back on the roots of his old band. He always built upon where he was, which was in London. And he didn't overuse synthesizers. He used them just enough. It's such a cool sound.

The day of parts of the country hating each other, or rivalries like that... I feel like that's dead.

My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese.

I spent most of my 20s playing music. I was in a band and we worked really hard and did not get very far. I was really close to being this guy who used to be in this band who is still playing and trying to get some recordings together, but I got really lucky. That's never lost in me, that I went through Saturday Night Live.

If someone can write great music... Paul McCartney is a genius. He's so prolific. All we should do is bow down to Paul McCartney.

If there is a blues song, it just goes in one ear and out the other. But other than that, if it stays with you and when we are all 90, we're going to look back at those songs, and it's going to be emotional. And when someone plays it, and you know it, and you're going to go, "I know that song and I love it."

There's something that I can't describe about the city [Portland] that I really love - just physically - how it feels to walk around there, and have coffee there. Also, the way that it's a little overcast sometimes. Something about Portland just really resonated with me.

I don't miss anything ever. Because to me, missing something is like going backward a little bit. I don't miss being in a punk band. For me, 'SNL' is like... this is gonna sound overly dramatic, but... the way I am, it feels like I'm a soldier, so it was like, 'What do you want me to do? Put me anywhere. Do you want me to do these sketches? Great.'

There's no judgment on bands that continue on who aren't popular; some people get enjoyment out of it. I'm just not one of those people. I wanted attention.

I don't know any artists or painters, like, "Oh that painting group." I want to write down this idea of a group of artists who treat it like a band. Like, "Who made the painting?" "All four of us did."

I was in a band and it wasn't working out the way I wanted. Then somehow, little by little, I started doing a couple comedy things. All of a sudden I was being asked to do more and more comedy things. There was this message from the world saying, "Maybe you should go this direction."

It's already years ago now, but there's that South Korean music artist Psy, who had that hit song and it was a hit song here. I'm like, "Wait a minute. There's a chance. There's a way we can have language not be such an important part of comedy."

Some rules are good. For example, off the top of my head, let's say a stand-up comedian or a talk show host wearing a nice suit - as a ponderer, I grew up like, "Why don't they just go up there in their army jacket? They're fine!" Then little by little, you think, "You know, it's kind of nice to look nice, like you made the effort." Then you're back at rule one; that was the original rule.

Everyone goes through all kinds of relationship situations. I'm lucky that I get to be on two comedy shows [during divorce].

I can't relax. I'm not happy unless I'm working on stuff. 'SNL' is always a huge workload, as enjoyable as it is.

Every music journalist I've ever met has been stunningly beautiful.

I loooved Sleater-Kinney like a crazy person.