Don't be a jerk. Try to love everyone. Give more than you take. And do it despite the fact that you only really like about seven out of 500 people.
College is the reward for surviving high school. Most people have great fun stories from college and nightmare stories from high school.
Eventually, the nerds and the geeks will have their day.
I always feel like I'm very far from my potential.
We are at this weird moment where there's an economic model that supports creativity. People are demanding something new and fresh.
I think the story should always determine the visual approach. There are situations where you want things to feel alive and like life, and there are situations that should have some magic and the separation with the grain.
In the writing, I'm just trying to go deeper, emotionally, and learn more about myself and reveal more and find a way to connect with people in new ways.
I feel like Superbad and Freaks And Geeks are somewhat timeless. That's always gratifying, when you feel like 30 years in the future, people will still get it, and it won't seem creaky. It won't come across like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
Every day I live by only one rule, be a good guy.
I'm always surprised when you do something very different that people don't get behind you more, because you're always told, "Take chances! Stretch!" And when you do it, sometimes people get really supportive and excited, but sometimes people go at you because you've tossed out the formula.
Most people are really fighting to not be adults. And, when it happens, it's a big transition. And a lot of that is just awful. It's awful to have to get a job and really be responsible for other people. And it is funny, too. Like, we're all kind of little idiot kids trying to act like we know what we are doing.
If everyone is mature, there is no comedy.
Television is much more difficult because at every moment, the network can force you to change things based on their belief about what would make it popular. You’re in a constant debate with a gun to your head, and the gun is cancellation. So it’s hard to win the arguments.
Every joke is an experiment. When you sit, alone, and write a script, or just a joke, you really have no idea if it will succeed.
I am always driven by the terror of humiliation.
I literally cannot remember one joke.
The moment you think of a joke is the best moment.
The only way you survive on all these services is if you're groundbreaking. There's pressure to be groundbreaking, which is the greatest thing that's ever happened. It's a bizarre aspect of what's happened with all of these subscription services is everyone is trying to outdo each other by doing great things.
I've had movies bomb with terrible reviews, I've had movies make a lot of money with terrible reviews, I've had movies get good reviews and make money. And I like it best when the movies do well and the reviewers like them.
For a long time, TV was just the land of handsome, beautiful people, and now it's the opposite.
There was definitely a period when I just felt out of sync with earth.
You can do weird things on TV - there are happy stories, sad stories, dark stories. But with a movie, it always has to end satisfying. Unless you're the Coen brothers, and it ends with somebody getting shot in the head.
I worshipped guys like Bill Maher, Jay Leno, and Jerry Seinfeld, and was doing my variation of that. But as a young person with no political point of view or life experience, it was as funny as you can imagine.
I get literally a physical sensation of low self-esteem that is a result of not engaging the world and getting comfortable that way.
I think that everything I do tends to root for the underdog.
