Michael Showalter Quotes

A lot of my humor centers on the act of telling jokes and I think this can prevent certain audiences from suspending their feeling of disbelief. It might piss a few people off, but I can't help it.

I'm not sure why I like cats so much. I mean, they're really cute obviously. They are both wild and domestic at the same time.

In my perfect world order, it is cold all the time. Everyone wears sweaters and drinks coffee. People don't speak to each other; they read the newspaper. There is no loud music, and cats are in charge.

I think gay people deserve all the same rights as everybody else, it's just that marriage is specifically for a man and a woman.

I calculated that if I wrote five pages a day, which seemed very doable, I would have an 1,800-page first draft when the deadline rolled around. Though completely unwritten, I was very impressed with how long my first draft would be.

Love is such a confusing word. You think I'm joking but I'm not.

I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.

Maybe in 10 years,I'll only be doing "classical" comedy. Or crashing my car into trees.

If your dad is anything like mine, then you have no clue what to buy him for Father's Day. The only Father's Day tradition in my family is the annual conversation he and I have where I say, 'Hey, Dad, what do you want for Father's Day this year?' and he says, 'Nothing.' Then I ask my mom what I should get him and she says, 'He likes sandalwood soap, dangly jewelry and Chanel No. 5 perfume.'

In real life, comedians aren't funny.

I just made a movie. There's a kind of a banter that some people might recognize as being screwball. There are no cell phones, no DVD playersit's set in a timeless Brooklyn. Hopefully, it's a good, old-fashioned movie.

I was kind of in an experimental phase with The Disposable Rappers. This is boring to me, because it's true, but when I was a sophomore in high school, I visited my sister in college and saw an improv troupe, and that was a genuine moment for me. It was an actual "Aha!" moment. After I saw that, I said, "I want to do comedy." So The Disposable Rappers started doing improv in addition to rapping, and when I went to college, I very specifically went saying "I want to join a comedy group."

I like the comedians that go into detail and tell longer stories.

For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black's tweets.

I tend to a lot of improvisational ranting, and that's fun. For me, stand-up has been, performance-wise, a really good outlet.

I don't audition for "on-air" commercials - the ones where your face can be seen. I've auditioned for voiceover campaigns that I haven't gotten, but I don't really want to be seen in a commercial unless it's a product that I really love. Like, if Adidas asked me, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I did a Reebok commercial, one for Pep Boys, one for Dunkin' Donuts. I auditioned for commercials, but I really couldn't stomach it. It just didn't feel right.

I knew that if I was going to write a book, I was going to have to read one, too.

I don't personally feel comfortable performing in a comedy club, mainly because as an audience member, I've never enjoyed that experience. It feels a little bit theme-park-ish to me, in that it's a club whose product is comedy. I find that weird. It's like those specialty chocolate stores, where everything is chocolate. It's too specific. I like going somewhere that specializes in variety.

I like doing all different types of comedy - stand-up, sketch, movies, TV. I like to try everything.

Cats are unpredictable because they're wild and domestic at the same time. Watching a cat's behavior is like a small window into the wild.

I feel like marriage is a sacred institution that should only be between a man and a woman. If a gay couple wants to be married, why can't they just be satisfied with a civil union? Why do they have to get "married"?

That's the thing that most people don't realize. In real life, comedians aren't funny. They save it. They save it up.

I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world. They have no concept of their behavior or how it might be affecting other people. So comedically, it's a very fun type of character to play. They are bulls in a china shop, twenty-four seven.

Will Ferrell is probably the funniest comic actor, certainly of my generation. I am a huge, huge Will Ferrell fan. I'm not a huge comedy buff, truthfully. What I find funny is either something unbelievably stupid, like Dumb And Dumber or Airplane!, where the jokes are just so stupid and pointless, or something like The Office or The Comeback, where the humor is in the excruciating awkwardness of a situation. Stella kind of explores both of those, stupidity and awkwardness.

I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke completely at someone else's expense. Even though I think he does it better than anyone else, I don't love... Well, it's different with Sacha Baron Cohen, but that whole thing where you're "punking" people? I don't like that. I don't like doing it, and I don't particularly find it funny when the joke is on a person who doesn't know they're being set up.