You can't escape culture. You can learn about it. You can criticize it. You can try to move it slowly. But at the end of the day, you can't actually opt out of the culture that you're in.
Adam Conover
I see myself as an avatar of curiosity and doubt.
People are so quick to demonize and stereotype those on the other side that they often say that it's impossible to work with people on the other side.
On 'Adam Ruins Everything' we do the broadest sketch comedy possible. We do stuff where you can see it immediately and know it's a joke - characters in big silly costumes; here's Uncle Sam and he's twiddling his fingers saying, 'Oh, I'm naughty.'
Your date of birth is a security point for identity theft.
Late 19th-century America was basically a plutocratic enterprise while people toiled in mines and died of coal dust poisoning.
I eat about two meals a day vegan, is my rule of thumb. When I'm traveling, all bets are off, but I don't cook meat in the house. I rarely cook eggs. I never use milk. But when I go out to eat for a special treat, I'll have some meat. But I know, personally, that's the best I'm ever going to do in my life.
Information's right at our fingertips, but so is what you want to believe. It's the classic thing of someone Googling 'autism vaccines' - they'll find what they're looking for, depending on what they think. You'll find lots of people who are just bolstering what they already think, bolstering their cultural attitude.
It's only when you get towards the top that people start throwing you down a rope. It's like a law of nature, and it makes me think a lot about what my responsibility is to folks who are further down the hole where I was - how I can offer them help and how I can try to help change the structure of American society.
I am not an educator and I'm not a journalist. I am a comedian. But I do truly believe that the point of comedy is to make the world around one better.
Security theater is the idea of putting on a big show of security in order to make people feel safe. That's why the TSA screens everything and takes your stuff away.
My goal as a comedian is to sway people's opinion. It's not my only goal and it's not the only way I measure myself.
I don't claim to have all the answers; after all, I'm just a comedian who reads a lot.
I don't want to change people's opinions to my political opinion; I want to enlighten people and make them think about the world differently.
What people say about millennials is the same thing they've said about every generation: Younger people are obsessed with technology, and selfish, and they're lazy, and they live with their parents... Guess what? That's 'cause they're young people!
I get messages from 21-year old white dudes who have just gotten out of an expensive college and say 'Hey can I pick your brain?' and I have nothing to say to them because A. They already have all the advantages and B. My advice would be the same as anyone else: Go do open mics.
I'm a naturally curious person.
I don't consider myself an educator.
Comedy has no rules, per se.
Listen more than you speak.
I find that I have a lot of suppressed energy when I'm on a plane for a long period so when I'm holding a fidget spinner, being able to play with it and just sort of run my hands over it helps me out quite a lot; it helps me relax.
Generational thinking has always been reductive and condescending.
The idea that you must bathe every day is, to a certain extent, a manufacture on the part of the soap industry.
The Daily Show' was really a turning point, where people started to realize that comedy can have a true cultural impact and can have something to say that is serious.
I'm the only member of my family who didn't get a PhD. So, I'm like the failure of the family, cause all I have is a bachelor's, like a drop out.
I have a vested interest in increasing the amount of diversity in my own business. That's something that I care about. So mentoring people who are trying to break into the business who could use a hand, that's the type of person I look for.
The journalistic and political classes are very eager to borrow the cultural authority of comedians when it suits them, sending out gala invitations and posing for photos in hopes that a bit of that edgy satirical shine will rub off on them.
In my moments of greatest hubris, I say to myself, 'Yes, you should be trying to change the world.'
Into the Breach' is a wonderful strategy game where you play that you are trying to stop an alien invasion. But of course, 'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' and 'Super Mario Odyssey' are just two of the most superlative games ever made, and so when I have time to completely lose myself in those, it's really, really a joy.
I sort of expose the truth about common misconceptions, or you know, investigate why we do certain things culturally, why we have certain traditions, and ask the question, 'is this really the best way we can be doing things?'
I think that at the end of the day correcting misinformation and questioning what we think we know as a habit of mind is incredibly important.
It's the reaction I've gotten my whole life: that I learn something and try to tell people in conversation, but when I tell them, they are annoyed.
There is nothing better than getting to just dig in and seriously play a video game for a six-hour flight from New York to L.A.
I went to Bard College, which was a really interesting synthesis of a hippie school and a serious academic institution. It was really the perfect spot for me.
You have to accept that other people are not going to live their lives like you, and you have to find a way to achieve your goals while they are still existing and living their lives according to their choices.
I think that veganism is a totally great choice with incredible benefits, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect other people to be vegan or to expect everybody to be vegan. You can proselytize all you want, but being vegan is a pretty intense choice for a lot of people.
I loved 'Beakman's World' growing up. As much as I loved 'Bill Nye,' I always preferred 'Beakman's World' because I thought it was funnier.
No one who hired Siegfried & Roy was shocked when they brought a tiger onstage. So you shouldn't be shocked if you book a comedian and she points out that the emperor has no clothes.
I wanted to go to grad school in philosophy... Nobody was like, 'You should!' You know, they were all like, 'you could?'
I want to do stories that are about the bits of cultural furniture that are sitting there that we're like, 'Oh yeah, that's been there for years! What could possibly be weird about it?' And then we're going to lift that piece of furniture and look at all the bugs scurry away.
Human capacity for not thinking about what we're doing is infinite.
I find that a really restful, relaxing way to spend time on a plane is to listen to an audiobook while drawing.
In a live setting, the audience is trapped and can't leave. That really makes the audience be with you and laugh more because you're there.
I hate cars; in terms of what they do to nature and personally I just don't like driving them. I think they're a very bad way to design a transportation system.
We don't claim to be infallible. I don't claim to be giving you truths from on high.
If it weren't for the fellow union members and leaders who have my back, the barons of the TV industry would happily pay me a nickel a page and spend what would have been my residuals on more caviar to put in their infinity pools.
I have a very deep belief that all the problems in society are not because some people are bad and some people are good and we have to get rid of all the wrong people. Everything that we want to fix is because of a flaw in humans in general, something that humans together do incorrectly.
Growing up as a comedian the most influential person on me was Jon Stewart. He showed that comedy could have a real tangible effect on the world. He showed that comedy could move the needle of society and that a comic can do real things and make a real contribution.
That's something I learned as a philosophy major: The philosophy ethos is, always question, never rest.
Comics are regularly asked to perform for impossible rooms. They're called 'hell gigs.'
