Top 70 Patton Oswalt Quotes

I think the kind of person that gravitates toward New York is a person that’s not so much focused on controlling exactly how they appear and how they exit. They’re more fascinated with the process.

I haven’t sworn off Facebook. I’m on Facebook. There’s a fan page on Facebook that I will update, but I’m on there myself under a pseudonym, because there were a lot of people able to private-message me on Facebook, and it was getting really weird.

Knock on wood, my groupies tend to be very artistic, creative people – sometimes way more creative than I am.

This sounds like a brag, but I know how to make good fried rice. I learned in college. There are two secrets – take the rice after you cook it and let it get cold in the fridge. Then cook the egg like you’re making a fried egg and just before it’s done, dump the rice and veg on it and swirl it around.

When you act, you’re being asked to pretend in a very rigid, controlled environment. It’s very un-childlike. So a lot of times, when you put kids in that situation, you hope they have a better support system outside of what they’re doing to bring them back to reality at the end of the day and to keep them well-rounded.

We’re rewarding either the reality or the appearance of youth, which is why you have all these people in their fifties trying to act like they’re seventeen. You know, it’s great to be young. Be young. By all means, be young. But always remember that youth is also kinda dumb, and doesn’t know a lot yet.

Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, ‘This is where I wanna be.’

I have a very tiny house in Burbank. I drive an 8-year-old car. I’m gonna drive it into the ground. I enjoy what I enjoy.

I have to drink this much to be as unfunny as you.

I’m going to continue to try to strike a balance, because I really, really do love doing stand-up, and I don’t see why it should affect the acting.

Here’s what I’m afraid of. I know a lot of comedians, friends of mine, who just got into the ‘Doesn’t matter what I say. It doesn’t matter. They’re just gonna laugh anyway.’

If you actually do cold readings, it’s very close to how people actually talk, because you’re experiencing these thoughts anew every moment, and trying to make them come out coherently.

There are times when I have to take, I call it a ‘silence bath,’ where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.

We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

I don’t want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day.

If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home.

There are times when I have to take, I call it a ‘silence bath,’ where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.

As unhealthy as I am, I’m weirdly aware of exactly how my body functions.

There is a part of my generation that is not on social media because they have happy lives and they’re not trying to connect with anybody. And there are other people who are on social media because they need to connect.

I like to write, I like to do stand-up, I like to act.

I’ve hung out in the writer’s room a few times, but the fact is we’ve got such a good writing staff, I don’t want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything.

If you hit a midget on the head with a stick, he turns into 40 gold coins.

As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

It’s like our country is being run by a bunch of bad alcoholic dads right now.

Growing up, there are always those kids who are only happy when they are making someone else upset. That is unfortunately just how some people are. And their parents were fine. Some people are just born with bad wiring.

In my mind, I was always a comedian who was going to branch into writing.

Having enough money has to go hand in hand with living in a way that you’re not being a slave to your possessions.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’

One of my groupies gave me a film that they made, and it ended up being amazing, so I got it shown at South by Southwest. If I can help get their stuff out there, then great.

I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form.

I have to drink this much to be as unfunny as you.

Knock on wood, my groupies tend to be very artistic, creative people – sometimes way more creative than I am.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

When you act, you’re being asked to pretend in a very rigid, controlled environment. It’s very un-childlike. So a lot of times, when you put kids in that situation, you hope they have a better support system outside of what they’re doing to bring them back to reality at the end of the day and to keep them well-rounded.

What you want to worship above youth, I think, is beauty, and beauty is so beyond just appearances after a while. Because you can be with someone who’s good-looking; if they open their mouths and they’re an idiot, then they cease to be beautiful very quickly.

When you put an album out, you can’t do any material from the album if people are paying to see you.

Every audience is different, even within the same venue. You have to just make every audience your audience; you can’t pre-judge an audience based on the size of the room or the type of room.

If you hit a midget on the head with a stick, he turns into 40 gold coins.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’

With acting, you see some of the kids are literally just off the street, untrained, and they are great. And others are off the street, untrained, and kind of horrible.

Yeah, there were a few years in the early nineties where I really began to hate what was valued as funny and just sort of what was valued in stand-up, period.

I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out if me with steel pipes.

I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out if me with steel pipes.

Doing ‘Young Adult’ was really reassuring to me in a lot of ways. It confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about great actors.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

Based on my own experience, when you’re going through adolescence you don’t know how the world works. You can’t set a story in the world you live in because you don’t know what a utility bill is, or how to budget your paycheck.

I mean, the death in the late eighties and early nineties really shook out a lot of hacks. The pond just sort of dried up for a lot of really bad comedians.

I fantasize and idealize myself as Bugs Bunny, but I know deep down I’m Daffy Duck.

I know how my body operates differently from what it did when it was 30 and when it was 20. As unhealthy as I am, I’m weirdly aware of exactly how my body functions.

I think right now is the best time for stand-up, ever. I sincerely do.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation made a bobble head of me and sent it to my management. No card, nothing.

I’m always trying out new stuff onstage. That’s where I do all my writing.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation made a bobble head of me and sent it to my management. No card, nothing.

A lot of nerds aren’t aware they’re nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, ‘I speak Klingon – who am I fooling? You win! I’m just gonna openly like what I like.’ Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves.

Now we live in this DVD, iTunes, Hulu age, and show creators and networks are realizing that and letting shows develop on those terms rather than ‘We gotta just punch it week to week, man.’ Now they’re like, ‘What will happen if someone watches the entire show?’

I hate all sidekicks.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, ‘Well, I’ve had it with humanity.’ But I was wrong.

I have a very tiny house in Burbank. I drive an 8-year-old car. I’m gonna drive it into the ground. I enjoy what I enjoy.

I wish I had a really cool, esoteric answer, but what the process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.