Top 44 Brett Gelman Quotes

I think that all the Mel Brooks’ company of actors is just tremendous. It was a crazy group of genius people. All of them taught me what kind of actor I should be and what was funny.

A lot of times, comedic actors are discriminated against. People just assume they can’t do something other than what they do, rather than thinking, ‘Oh, wait – doing what they do normally is really hard.’

I’m a straight white man – I have options, and I’m not blocked on a consistent basis when I wake up in the morning because of my race, sex, and orientation.

I would say that is the beauty of Adult Swim is that they’re always pushing forward from what they’ve done in the past, and they’re always just trying different styles.

We spend so much of our lives doing math problems on how to feel good. It’s such a waste of time. You’re going to feel how you feel. It’s hard to just set up a way that you’re going to live your life that is going to be just endlessly happy and healthy. That’s impossible.

I really am not that hairy on my body. It’s weird.

I think comedy is incredibly discriminated against. It is one of the most enjoyed yet most condescended art forms in the world. It’s the same thing with hip-hop.

I love ‘Seinfeld.’ That was not alternative. You can’t get more in mainstream than that.

I saw ‘A Night at the Opera,’ this Marx Brothers film, when I was, like, six years old. I just became obsessed, you know?

I think that’s something that people don’t realize enough about when they get into comedy – it’s not just about sitting back and observing and saying something funny.

The world is pretty messed up.

I’m not a fighter. I don’t like to get beat up.

One of the things I was taught was how you deal with language. It’s important, very important in comedy.

I honestly don’t see how anyone can view the GOP and the Right as anything but evil.

Every white liberal straight man needs to take action and work at unifying all peoples of our sides and stop making women and people of color and the LGBT community fight it out themselves and just pat them on the back. We have to take active roles in supporting them, defending them, and hiring them.

I’m Jewish, so it’s like I’m not totally white. I’m, like, gray.

We live in a country whose government and many of its people support white supremacy and disintegration of basic human rights.

I love taking on roles that other people have written for me just as much as I take on writing – just not as much of a, ‘Oh, that guy.’ I want people to start saying, ‘Oh, Brett Gelman’s new piece is coming out. That’s a Brett Gelman movie. That’s a a Brett Gelman show.’

I’ve always been an actor. I’ve always approached all my comedy as an actor.

I always at least try to come from some sort of human place no matter how ridiculous the character is. That’s really awesome. That is more the work that I’m leaning towards doing.

There are not many people that I respect more than rappers. I’m a huge fan of hip hop. It’s incredible, one of the most influential things to me. It takes real genius to be able to do well. It’s a very deep art form.

I’ve definitely had the long stretches of time in my personal life where I’ve felt an intense loneliness and a desperation to feel something real and to have something that truly meant something in my life.

It’s actually just as cool to be on television as to be in a movie, and nobody’s ashamed of this back and forth.

I’m not someone who shies away from darkness being funny. I think that life is very dark at times, and there are things that are very funny about that.

As far as making people feel less depressed, that, in and of itself, is a political act.

Gilbert Gottfried, I think, is just the most underappreciated comedian in the world. I think that he doesn’t get enough credit for how funny he is.

Jason Woliner and I have been longtime friends and collaborators.

I love Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke, but if I’m not in the right frame of mind to watch their work, I feel upset after watching it.

Use your imaginations, and use your empathy. If you don’t do that, you’re limiting yourself as an artist, and you’re hurting the world.

‘Dinner’ is completely scripted. There are some improv elements, but I’m not interested in pranking people. It’s more like a play than standup.

Dinner is often a very celebratory environment, a very safe place, a time to reflect and let the day go and enjoy good food and good wine. It’s a very peaceful moment during the day. A great dinner can change your day around.

I’ve never gone to a bachelor party, where I didn’t, no matter how much I loved the people there, hate them so much for their disgusting behavior.

Comedy is all about the character. When you’re too focused on the gags, the character suffers, and you don’t get the laugh. Comedy has to come from the character.

A crazy action only works if there’s a great reaction.

I think it’s good news that cable television is so, so supportive of the Louis C.K.s, the Lena Dunhams, the Matthew Weiners, and the Vince Gilligans. There’s just so many people fearlessly making their stuff, you know?

I’ve wanted to be a comedian since I was a kid, and my parents were very supportive of that.

I like being strange. I like being hyperbolic and surreal.

Nobody wants to see a woman onscreen who is a wreck. That is pure, unadulterated, systemic misogyny.

What a great way to make some money is just fine somebody $300 if their phone rings in the theatre. That’ll make them remember to turn it off.

There’s a certain order to network shows that doesn’t exist so much in cable, which is, you know, if you want to change a line you’ve got to talk to the writer.

I look upon ‘A Little Bit of Luck’ as a very bizarre, happy, surreal memory.

I have Janicza solely to thank for my growth as an actor because she saw in me something that other people just weren’t seeing, and she knew that I could go beyond the normal, funny ‘make-em-ups’ that I was doing on an improv stage.

I’m an actor, and I want to play flawed characters, and I’m a writer that wants to write flawed characters, trying to let something out and hoping people relate through that or have fun experiencing the story.

Talking is not action. Don’t just look at what you say. Look at how you socialize.