Dorks are not exempt from bad behaviour.
Pete Holmes
When I look at what's happening with #MeToo, my heart breaks, basically, for everybody involved.
I'm the weirdo that tells - asks - the Uber driver to please turn the radio down. I'm so polite about it, though.
When I was in junior high, I went to a really hippy dippy Quaker school where we called our teachers by their first names and stuff.
As soon as I heard the term 'comedy nerd,' I'd hoped there was a lot of them.
I used to just want so badly to have afterlife insured and make sure I was going to heaven.
It's hard to control the things that are going to inspire you.
Science would like to tell us that people laugh because of the benign violation theory, but comedy doesn't have hard rules.
I think my mom recognized that I liked people to be happy. I like people to get along. And I like to be a peacemaker. And I liked the church. So she was like, 'You should be a youth pastor.'
The underlying goal of comedy is feeling not-alone.
It's funny - the reason I started doing a podcast was because every time I was on someone else's podcast, I would take it over a little bit.
My mom wanted me to be a youth pastor, and when I became a comedian, she said it was close enough.
Good comedy can be liberating, and if I'm doing my job as a comedian, part of the joy for the audience is getting that release.
Joy is in learning to say yes to what is and to surrender into flow with what is, even when it's what you don't want.
When I got divorced, the first people I called were Nick Kroll and John Mulaney and T. J. Miller - all the pals.
In real life, T. J. Miller is one of my best friends, and I'll maybe see him for two or three days in a row, and then I won't see him for four months. That's just how our lives are.
I felt like I was in a unique position, or I am in a unique position, to show the evangelical world in a way that I haven't seen on TV before. That's a world that I'm very familiar with.
I booked an E-Trade commercial. That's a lucrative gig.
The beautiful thing about stand-up advice is that it applies to anybody, any gender, any race, any age. The best thing you can do - everybody will tell you - is get on stage as much as you can. I would add to that: get on stage as much as you can - with the people you admire.
The skill set of pastor and comedian are incredibly similar. You want to affect people. You're good at reading rooms. You're persuasive, and you're likable.
Whenever I make a blasphemous joke, I always say that I believe in a God big enough to know that I'm just kidding. How can God not know that I'm kidding? And also, how could God be offended at a thing that he made not believing in him?
I think a lot of pain in people's lives comes from not being open and honest about what they really think, what they really feel, what they like, what they don't like.
Sometimes I liken the comedian's lifestyle a little bit to a firefighter's in the sense that there's a lot of waiting and a lot of nothingness. And then there are moments of urgent firefighting.
So we have the story of who we are. I'm a man, and I'm a comedian, and I'm a tall man. I have big teeth and all these things, and I like the first two Batman movies, and I don't drink coffee, or whatever it is.
I'm down with Jesus, sweet Jeez, sweet baby Jeez.
I disagree with the idea that everything happens for a reason.
Traffic: Sit there. Sit. Occasionally move your foot from the brake and crawl forward, then put it back. That's all you do for hours. It's very calming.
I like squirm-laughing.
When my wife left me, in real life, T. J. Miller was like, 'I'm shooting a movie in Pittsburgh. I'll fly you out and get you a hotel room,' and I spent a week with him.
Yeah, I had a talk show canceled. Okay, let's go back to the list of people who had talk shows canceled. Johnny Carson had his first talk show canceled. Jon Stewart. Letterman. Conan O'Brien, if you look at 'The Tonight Show' as a show that got canceled.
The biggest idea of a good time for me is making the Batman videos that we did. That is my ideal day. That is exactly what I want to be doing... I like doing cartoons. I like writing things.
When I grew up, my model of God was like a lifeguard: I knew He loved me, but He blew his whistle a lot.
The only Batman that doesn't need parodying is Adam West, but everybody else is fair game.
I think there's something so funny about Ram Dass. I was lucky enough to sit across from him at dinner once, and I got up the courage to tell him that he was my favorite comedian. Even though he's not a comic, he talks about showbiz in a certain way and understands that there's a presentation to it.
Ideally, a good pastor wants to empower a congregation to the point where they don't need him. You want everyone to leave feeling better.
I thought divorce was for people that threw plates at each other, and I'd have to be an alcoholic or having affairs. But the truth is, sometimes a very sweet, well-meaning person just doesn't do it for you, and you need to get out of there.
I look at my faith like a room, and there was all of this furniture in there, but I had inherited most of the furniture. Then, when I got divorced, I took everything out just to see how I was going to refurnish the room, and that was a very essential step in my life. It was great.
When you slide into television, no one tells you exactly how manage expectations and work with your staff.
I hate when pastors have a gay son and then they become pro-gay.
I'm super happy to say that it's not that hard to write bad stand-up. I guess the trick is to write bad stand-up that sounds like you're trying to be good.
When I used to work the road, I remember I used to ask myself in the mirror, literally, like in a movie, back when I was not very good at all, I'd say, 'What's it like being the greatest comedian in the world?'
Comedians really are like a species. That's not to be exclusive. Anyone can kind of become one. You have to pay your dues, though.
The world is so mysterious, and there's so many social interactions where I have no idea what I'm supposed to do - what's being asked of me, what's expected of me.
Literally, my honeymoon was driving to Chicago.
Life is temporary. We die one day. Live it up!
I love Jon Stewart.
I'll admit that I'm self-centered - all of us are - but I can also be external and giving and listening and empathetic and all that sort of stuff.
I love alpha males.
We'd all like to increase pleasure and minimize pain, but the truth is, suffering, even collective suffering that we're going through, is often the earmark that some real change is happening.
We can give space to someone's depression. We can love them; we can honor - we can just eat some noodles, we can watch some movies, whatever it is. We can just sit and not talk. That's real stuff. It's a real - I don't know if you call it a disorder, a disease, but it's happening, and we don't need to coach people through with ideologies.
