Author: Kelsey Mihachik

“Dreaming provides a unique suite of benefits for all species fortunate enough to experience it.” – pg. 7

“The brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.” – pg. 7

Sleep Pressure – When the chemical adenosine builds up in your brain. The longer you are awake, the more adenosine will accumulate. – pg. 26

“NREM sleep is one of the most epic displays of neural collaboration that we know of. Through an astonishing act of self-organization, many thousands of brain cells have all decided to unite and ‘sing,’ or fire, in time. Every time I watch this stunning act of neural synchrony occurring at night in my own research laboratory, I am humbled: sleep is truly an object of awe.” – pg. 49

REM sleep – Has also been called paradoxical sleep: a brain that appears awake, yet a body that is clearly asleep. It recalibrates and fine-tunes the emotional circuits of the human brain. It also fuels creativity: acting as an electrical fertilizer during critical phases of early life. REM sleep brainwaves are chaotic and desynchronized: showing a vivacious and healthy form of electrical activity. It is often impossible to distinguish REM sleep from wakefulness using just electrical brainwave activity. REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. – pg. 51, 73-78, 82, 309

“Partially aquatic mammals, they split their time between land and sea. When on land, they have both NREM sleep and REM sleep […]. But when they enter the ocean, they stop having REM sleep almost entirely.” – pg. 60

Unihemispheric – The ability to sleep with half a brain at a time. Dolphins and whales exhibit this, as well as birds when alone. When in a flock, birds will line up in a row – and with the exception of the birds at each end of the line, the rest of the group will allow both halves of the brain to indulge in sleep. At some point, the two end-guards will stand up, rotate 180 degrees, and sit back down, allowing the other side of their respective brains to enter deep sleep. – pg. 63-64

“REM sleep is strangely immune to being split across sides of the brain.” – pg. 65

“In flight, migrating birds will grab remarkably brief periods of sleep lasting only seconds in duration.” – pg. 66

“Biologically, it is as if the day and night are far less light and dark, respectively, for autistic individuals.” – pg. 80

“Alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep that we know of.” – pg. 81

“The proportion of REM sleep decreases in early childhood, while the proportion of NREW sleep actually increases.” – pg. 85

“Deep sleep may be a driving force of brain maturation, not the other way around.” – pg. 89

“Most of us do not have a good sense of our electrical sleep quality.” – pg. 95

Targeted Memory Reactivation – Selectively enhancing only the individual memories that you want to keep. Before going to bed, you review the learning experiences of the day, choosing only the memories from the menu list that you would like improved. – pg. 118

“Sleep [is] an active brain state, one in which we may review and even strengthen those things we have previously learned. […] In other words, your brain will continue to improve skill memories in the absence of any further practice.” – pg. 124-125

In one study, the accruing performance impairment (caused by only obtaining 4-6 hours of sleep) showed no signs of leveling out. Performance deterioration would continue to build up over weeks or months. – pg. 137

“The heady cocktail of sleep loss and alcohol was not additive [when it came to performance deterioration], but instead multiplicative.” – pg. 140

In another study, sleep-deprived participants showed a 60% amplification in emotional reactivity. This was seen when measuring activity of the Amygdala: the brain structure linked to fight-or-flight, also acting as a hot spot for triggering anger and rage. – pg. 146

“Lack of sleep is a causal trigger of a psychiatric episode of mania or depression.” – pg. 150

Decreased attractiveness due to being sleep-deprived is a physical expression of underlying biology that alters your chances of pair bonding and thus reproduction. – pg. 180

“Emotional regions of the brain are up to 30% more active in REM sleep compared to when we are awake.” – pg. 195

Latent Content – Repressed desires, or unconscious wishes that had not been fulfilled, according to Freud. – pg. 200

Manifest Content – Camouflaged wishes and desires that are unrecognizable to the dreamer. – pg. 200

“A meaningful, psychologically healthy life is an examined one.” – pg. 203

Dreams are not a wholesale replay of our waking lives. However, between 35-55% of emotional themes and concerns that study participants had while they were awake powerfully and unambiguously resurfaced in the dreams they had at night. – pg. 204

Maybe dreams, like heat from a lightbulb, serve no function. Maybe they are of no use: simply an unintended by-product of REM sleep. Walker says this is not true. REM sleep in necessary, but REM sleep alone is not sufficient. Dreams are NOT the heat of the lightbulb. – pg. 206-207

Dream Functionality – REM sleep dreaming dissolves emotion from experience. You have not forgotten the memory, but you have cast off the emotional charge. Stress-related brain chemistry drops during the dreaming state. In fact, dreaming of a very specific kind is required during REM: it has to be about the emotional themes and sentiments of waking trauma. Another distinct benefit? Intelligent information processing that inspires creativity and promotes problem solving. – pg. 209-211, 219

Only patients who were expressly dreaming about their painful experiences gained clinical resolution from their despair, while those who dreamt (but not about the painful experience) could not get past the event. – pg. 211

“As he slept, he dreamed, and his dreaming brain accomplished what his waking brain was incapable of.” – pg. 220

“Little wonder, then, that you have never been told to ‘stay awake on a problem.’ Instead, you are instructed to ‘sleep on it.’ Interestingly, this phrase, or something close to it, exists in most languages.” – pg. 229

NREM sleep solidifies memories, while REM sleep and dreaming takes that which we have learned in one experience setting and applies it to others stored in our memories. – pg. 231

Thomas Edison used to sleep in a chair holding ball bearings. The minute his muscles relaxed (as he slipped into REM sleep), he would drop the ball bearings onto a metal saucepan below which would wake him up. Edison would then write down all of the creative ideas that were flooding his dreaming mind. – pg. 232

“We must drop core body temperature (by 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit) to initiate and maintain sleep.” – pg. 245, 275

“I suspect that you cannot recall any truly significant action in your life that wasn’t governed by two very simple rules: staying away from something that would feel bad, or trying to accomplish something that would feel good.” – pg. 247

“Emotions in appropriate amounts make life worth living. They offer a healthy and vital existence, psychologically and biologically speaking. Take them away, and you face a sterile existence with no highs or lows to speak of. Emotionless, you will simply exist, rather than live.” – pg. 247

REM-Sleep Rebound – When the brain (of an addict) begins feasting on REM sleep, binging in a desperate effort to recover that which it has been long starved of. – pg. 272

“Sleep may have more of an influence on exercise than exercise has on sleep. […] Try not to exercise right before bed. Body temperature can remain high for an hour or two after physical exertion. Should this occur too close to bedtime, it can be difficult to drop your core temperature sufficiently to initiate sleep due to the exercise-driven increase in metabolic rate.” – pg. 294-295

Studies showed that naps as short as 26 minutes still offered a 34% improvement in task performance, and more than 50% increase in overall alertness. – pg. 305

“The return on sleep investment in terms of productivity, creativity, work enthusiasm, energy, efficiency – not to mention happiness, leading people to work at your institution, and stay – is undeniable.” – pg. 332

“We need better public campaigns educating the population about sleep.” – pg. 337

“I believe it is time for us to reclaim our right to a full night of sleep, without embarrassment or the damaging stigma of laziness. […] Then we may remember what it feels like to be truly awake during the day, infused with the very deepest plentitude of being.” – pg. 340

TIPS [that I found relevant]: (1) Don’t take naps after 3pm, and (2) A relaxing activity, such as reading or listening to music, should be a part of your bedtime ritual. – pg. 342

“I have difficulty taking what’s inside my head and saying it out loud.” – pg. xi

“It’s slow to change, but most of the people are fundamentally good people.” – pg. 16

“It would be like if you were the only person in your high school who owned a ferret. And then you got to college and found a whole group dedicated to owning ferrets. You’d think, Wow. I finally belong… on an FBI watch list.” – pg. 62

“It was the first time I was willing to put 100 percent of my effort into one single pursuit without fear of failing, because I loved doing it so much that I couldn’t focus on anything else.” – pg. 67

“No one in comedy (or any field, really) succeeds in a vacuum. And the faster you find friends who challenge you and sometimes make you jealous, the faster you’ll grow as a comedian (and regress as a human).” – pg. 69

“This has been a theme throughout my life: Pretend I belong somewhere until I eventually do.” – pg. 114

“You always want to challenge yourself and try to get to the level of the people you admire.” – pg. 118

“If you’re not nervous, it means you don’t care.” – pg. 156

“You don’t need to do anything in life – if it feels wrong or unnatural, it probably is.” – pg. 194

“Any promotion or opportunity you get in life comes with increased exposure and increased criticism.” – pg. 199

“I learned to do what I think is funny and either it works or it doesn’t.” – pg. 209

“I was worried that I would look back and regret losing something good in pursuit of something better.” – pg. 304

“Announce that you are flying to the moon and everyone assumes you mean to land on it.” – pg. 148

“He had everything a man […] was supposed to have, need, or want. Except for time, of course.” – pg. 281

“Life is a story. It’s full of chapters. And the beauty of life is that not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter.” – pg. 7

“At every moment in life, there is a fork in the path you are on. And you can choose to go right or you can choose to go left. Every right you take leads you closer to your best possible destiny; every left leads you further away from it. […] One of my goals in life is to learn from my lefts so I can take more rights.” – pg. 19

“Your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.” – pg. 45

“It’s never too late to start caring.” – pg. 77

“When you’re trying to make it, you’re not judged necessarily by your talent but by your potential. And that potential is all about your willingness to listen, learn, and improve.” – pg. 123

“There is so much that is greater than us, whatever you believe. So while we get to choose the roads we take, we don’t get to know where they lead. Acceptance, then, is knowing that when your plan fails, or your road dead ends, it means a bigger plan is at work. And I’d rather be a part of a big plan than a small one.” – pg. 128

“When it comes to family and friends, either they believe in you right away, before you’ve ever done anything, or they’re your toughest critics and the last ones to offer praise.” – pg. 134

“Your job as a person with talent is to make yourself interesting after the audience hears your name.” – Keith Robinson, pg. 143

“For the first time […], I wasn’t trying. I was just being.” – pg. 153

“It is through our most extreme experiences that the biggest growth happens – if we survive them.” – pg. 153

“I guess that was the difference between me and many of the people I met over the course of my career: I always wanted to be bigger; I always wanted to do more; I always wanted to find the next step and the step after that.” – pg. 154

“One of the key factors for success – beyond work, talent, timing, relationships, and all the other qualities I’ve mentioned – is the glue that holds all of these together: commitment.” – pg. 160

“You have people who understand what you’re doing right away, and you got people who won’t get it until everyone else does. That’s just the way it is.” – Keith Robinson, pg. 169

“Once you know the rules of the game, you can play it.” – pg. 177

“If you do it enough, the right person will see you.” – pg. 178

“If success happens in part by chance, then the more you expose yourself to it, the luckier you will be.” – pg. 181

“I was successful not because I was the most talented person they’d seen and not even because I was the most persistent person they’d seen […]. But there was one other thing that gave me the winning edge, and will always give you the winning edge: being likable.” – pg. 183

“I’ve learned how to have confidence in my abilities and faith in my will to succeed.” – pg. 211

“If you wait for certainty, you will spend your whole life standing still. […] This of course leaves open the question of what direction you should move in. The answer: Pay attention, dummy. Life is pulling you there automatically. You don’t have to know You don’t have to understand. You just have to trust.” – pg. 212

“Every experience is a potential life lesson. Even if you don’t appreciate it at the time, each struggle in the present is preparing you for something else in the future.” – pg. 221

“Though people say to live in the moment, each moment leads to other moments. So treat each moment like a seed, and care for it so that something beautiful can grow from it.” – pg. 226

“Struggling when you’re going somewhere is exciting. Struggling when you’re not getting anywhere is challenging. But struggling when you’re going backward is hell.” – pg. 249

“Life is not about the result – we all have the same outcome in the end. Life is about the effort you put into it.” – pg. 250

“If you experience loss, it doesn’t mean you lost. It means you’ve been blessed with an opportunity to take a moment, realize how special someone or something has been to you, and go through new doors that were closed to you before.” – pg. 253

“Shortcuts may get you there quicker, but all the experience you gain on the long road allows you to stay there once you arrive.” – pg. 291

“Do your best, always. Because you never know who’s watching.” – pg. 307

“What’s important in a relationship is the bricks that every one of your words and actions lay down, because together they add up to the home that you’re going to live in for quite some time.” – pg. 315

“You don’t cry about what you don’t care about.” – pg. 323

“Look at what people make important.” – pg. 328

“It’s a scary thing to take the risks and make the sacrifices necessary to keep growing, but it’s better than living a life in which you don’t fulfill your potential.” – pg. 330

“What’s harder than achieving success is achieving consistent success. But what’s even harder […] is achieving consistently bigger successes.“

“But just because you work smart doesn’t give you the right to play stupid.” – pg. 350

“Sometimes it takes experiencing consequences to your actions for you to learn they’re wrong.” – pg. 355

“Everybody wants success in something, whether it’s work, love, play, finances, family, or an inner struggle. But success doesn’t come instantly. Life has a process of rejecting you to test you and prepare you to win.” – pg. 363

“How you handle rejection is very similar to how you’ll handle success. […] If you’re too weak to handle failure and disappointment, then you’re too weak to handle success.” – pg. 363

“Growing up, the best thing I ever had was nothing.” – pg. 367

“Who works hard just so they can relax?” – pg. 371

“Success is not an excuse to stop; it’s a reason to move the goalposts farther out and accelerate.” – pg. 371

“Patience is understanding that your moment will come at the right time, and your job is to get ready for that moment. Because if it comes when you’re not prepared, then it vanishes just as quickly.” – pg. 373

“In this world, there is nothing but life lessons. Pay attention to them and the world will open itself up to you.” – pg. 374

“Finally, thanks to you for reading this entire book, even the acknowledgments. Seems like you don’t want this story to end. Fortunately, it’s just the beginning…” – pg. 378

“After my internship, I went back to college having identified two critical things that some people take a lifetime to figure out – who I was and what I wanted to be. Now I had to figure out how to deliver on the latter.” – pg. 60

“If you do it the truthful way, sometimes you will get what you want and other times you will not, but your reputation and your word will always be good.” – pg. 107

“So, what did we do while the world either laughed at us or ignored us? We had FUN!” – pg. 135

“There are a lot of cooks in the TV kitchen and everybody wants to add a spice.” – pg. 152

“And there you go: I had succeeded simply by not failing spectacularly. I’m sure there’s a deep metaphor somewhere in there for anyone who ever has to pitch anything. Maybe it’s this: There are no perfect pitches, just try not to hit the dirt.” – pg. 164

“It is better to fail spectacularly and learn from it than it is to never fail and learn nothing.” – pg. 176

“There was something weirdly relatable – or maybe cautionary – about two good friends calling it quits, possibly forever.” – pg. 200

“No amount of wealth, beauty, or fame can immunize you from misfortune, tragedy, and despair.” – pg. 214

“Keep your sense of wonder, always remember where you’re from, and appreciate moments as they happen.” – pg. 258

“[…] Even though everything was changing, we would always be the same. Love would rule.” – pg. 264

“I am exactly where I’ve always wanted to be.” – pg. 281

“I don’t believe any level of success as an adult completely changes how you saw yourself as a child.” – pg. 5

“Everything we experience, good and bad, has a meaning, even if we may not understand it right away. It’s all happening for us to learn.” – pg. 10

“Our lives play an important role in the lives of others, too. It’s as if our lives were cogs […]. When we look back, it’s as if, without knowing it, we were all co-creating our lives.” – pg. 11

“Throw away everything else, but please, please don’t ever live your life without love.” – pg. 15

“Clearly defining what you want gives you direction and the inner fire that can motivate you.” – pg. 23

“A wise friend of mine once told me something I’ve never forgotten. […] You have to give people the dignity of their own process. I think about those words a lot. At the same time, it was my choice whether or not to keep someone in my life. The decision didn’t mean I didn’t love that person either. It meant only that I needed to love myself first and surround myself with only those things that would nourish me and those people whom I could trust.” – pg. 68

“I don’t let go of those feelings because I’m an amazingly unselfish person […]. I let go because in the end it’s better for me.” – pg. 71

“The difficulties that came so close to killing me were, in the end, what gave me a whole new life.” – pg. 73

“I’ve always had very high standards for myself – and have expected that the people around me would share that commitment. But over the years I’ve learned that this is not necessarily the case.” – pg. 78

“When I have thoughts that don’t really serve me, I now see them as visitors […]. I just observe them – it feels very much like being seated in the back row of a theater – giving me the objectivity to say to myself, ‘Oh, you’re thinking about that again.'” – pg. 78

“If you’re always the one who’s doing the giving, well, it’s actually kind of selfish. […] The truth is that asking other people for help is not a sign of weakness, but actually gives them an opportunity to feel empowered.” – pg. 83

“I believe that all relationships – including our marriages or partnerships – come to us to support our growth, and give us the opportunity to learn to create happiness and fulfillment. All our relationships together form a kind of mosaic.” – pg. 94

“I’m always looking out for what is best not just for me […], but for everybody in our family. What is the best way to support and fulfill everybody’s needs as we move forward?” – pg. 221

“Imagine what would happen if each one of us knew ourselves as fully and deeply as possible. And that we led each day of our lives consciously and compassionately, without projecting our emotions onto others, or allowing our egos to distort reality. If everyone did whatever work was necessary to get to know themselves better, and took responsibility for being the best self he or she could be, I believe the world would be a different place, a better place.” – pg. 229

“There are an unfathomable number of ways to win in a chess game. But there are only two possible results. You win or you lose. Chess is like consciousness. It’s finite yet infinite. It’s logical yet illogical. It’s knowable yet unknowable.” – pg. 188

“The greatest thing I’m excited for is, after a life of hardship, struggle, pain, and suffering, is to now, as I finally venture into my thirties, enjoy the fruits of my labor. There will be ups and downs, happy times and hard. But […] this is me at my happiest, and I plan to continue to create from the purest part of my heart.” – pg. 275

“I have used words and creative freedom to better myself. Whoever may be reading these words, I hope you have the courage to do the same through any form of creative expression. It has been a long road, but I too, finally… have escaped the supermarket.” – pg. 275

“I think all writers should have a voyeur nature. You have to look and listen. That’s why some writers might run out of material; they’re not looking, they’re not listening.” – Buck Henry, pg. 3

“Satire is usually more political, parody is usually more cultural.” – Buck Henry, pg. 7

“I can usually tell if a joke will work, but I can’t predict if a joke or a line will become iconic.” – Buck Henry, pg. 8

“You can sometimes achieve just as much through simplicity.” – pg. 11

“A lot of films are made by filmmakers who know nothing except other films. All the great filmmakers from the past knew something about real life.” – Buck Henry, pg. 15

“You can’t write characters and not be fond of them, I think.” – Buck Henry, pg. 18

“Timing is when a movie comes out. Timing is what the country’s political disposition is when a movie is released. It’s what people are thinking about – what they want to see. You can’t really control that as a writer. […] But, for the most part, if you’re talented, I think somebody will find you.” – Buck Henry, pg. 23

“Whenever we got stuck, he always said, ‘What is the truth here? What would someone actually do?'” – Judd Apatow on Garry Shandling, pg. 24

“Merchant and Gervais didn’t want conventional funny – they wanted funny that seemed as if it were ripped from the real world.” – pg. 26

“I think that’s what the best sitcoms are about, […] they’re about creating an environment in which you want to return and poke around for another half hour.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 31

“For me, a happy ending is never a cop-out. […] People do find love in real life. What’s wrong with that?” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 34

“But it’s really the job of the writer to pull off that sleight of hand. It’s like a magic trick. Look this way, not that way.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 35

“I just miss the sense of the unpredictable. You can’t make up that life. You have to have lived it.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 36

“I always try to be as open-minded as I can. It seems to me that they’re writing something from wherever they are at that point in their mindset.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 41

“[…] This feeling of thwarted ambition and people craving some kind of escape from their world, but never really quite knowing what that escape is.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 42

“It’s almost as if all characters now have to be black-and-white. Good and bad. And that all heroes have to be noble and honorable. But that’s not what real life is about. […] We want our shows to be aimed at a sort of reasoning, smart, intelligent audience that can steer its way through ambiguities.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 46

“Ramis perfected a comedy genre with a deceptively simplistic formula: lovable characters, who are considered losers, rebel against the establishment and save the day with their goofball high jinks.” – pg. 54

“Comedy works two ways. Either you have a normal person in an extraordinary situation, or you have an extraordinary person in a normal situation.” – Michael Shamberg via Harold Ramis, pg. 62

“I’m always more offended by dishonesty and hypocrisy than by an honest portrayal of the real world.” – Harold Ramis, pg. 66

“There are more well-made movies than good movies. That’s sort of my new mantra. Plenty of people can shoot beautiful films. There are a lot of great editors, a lot of great designers. But where is the content? Who are the characters?” – Harold Ramis, pg. 70

“Everyone saw their own faith in Groundhog Day. And it was not really faith in a God. […] It was a faith in humanity. […] You don’t need religion to be a good person. Maybe there’s a simpler way.” – Harold Ramis, pg. 73

“There’s no one like you. No one else has had your experience. […] We’ve all lived at the same time, watched the same shows, gone to the same movies, listened to the same music. But it’s all filtered through our unique personalities.” – Harold Ramis, pg. 75

“I think the idea is to live life and take inspiration from that experience, as opposed to just getting inspiration from other artists and their work.” – Dan Mazer, pg. 84

“It’s not because they’re funnier than anybody else; it’s just that they’ve been given the belief that they’re funnier.” – Dan Mazer, pg. 87

“I think you’ll find that most comedians never forget a joke. I think that’s one thing that keeps them going.” – Dan Mazer, pg. 102

“All good comedy comes from character. In my mind, jokes are one thing, but without a convincing protagonist and somebody you care about, your comedy is on a path to nothing.” – Dan Mazer, pg. 105

“I don’t like to replicate what I’ve seen done before – I don’t like to give people what they expect.” – Merrill Markoe, pg. 112

“If we were ever experiencing success, I definitely missed it.” – Merrill Markoe, pg. 124

“I can tell in just a couple of seconds if I am going to find someone funny. […] It’s all attitude and the right kind of brain cells.” – Merrill Markoe, pg. 127

“Real human beings don’t behave in big broad strokes. They behave with tiny, exacting, site-specific details.” – Merrill Markoe, pg. 129

“The fun part, if any of it can be considered fun, is when you start to improve the piece through the editing and rewriting. That is definitely where the art is: knowing what to save, what to throw out, what to embellish.” – Merrill Markoe, pg. 130

“‘The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.'” – Avery Trade via David Rees, pg. 134

“With comedy, you can’t be too precious, you just have to produce content, and you don’t have time to overthink it.” – David Rees, pg. 134

“The fact that your mind is being stimulated and poked and prodded, it’s going to lead to new ideas, and you’re just going to grow as a person. It sounds so simple and obvious, but for some reason I had a hard time with that concept for a while.” – David Rees, pg. 135

“How many people can say that something like that happened to them? That they and their friends have this little group in which they did this fun little thing together and then it ended up becoming internationally respected? Most people go through their entire lives without ever having anything like this happen. They get married, they have kids, they grow old, and die. And nothing like this ever happens to them. But it happened to me. That’s amazing. What are the chances it’s going to happen twice? I’m going to go out on a limb and say probably zero. But don’t get me wrong. I still complain every day.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 171

“I don’t think there is any point in making a joke that is not an honest joke. And I don’t find jokes funny if they’re not honest. Unfortunately, the truth usually hurts.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 172

“Everyone on the staff felt that it was just something to do where we would feel less like we were wasting our lives.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 174

“Start your own paper. Do your own thing. That’s what I would recommend to anybody who wants to do anything. […] Do it for free and have fun. […] If you want to do something creative, you should have a better reason for wanting to do it than to make money.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 177

“But what I understand about humor is that it’s a form of a startle reaction. It’s the processing of fear.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 187

“Look, man. I’m a college dropout. What the fuck do I know? I’m just saying you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that humor is connected to pain.” – Todd Hanson, pg. 188

“My whole life, I’ve always looked at things and thought they were more complicated than they really were.” – Paul Feig, pg. 202

“In a sense, that’s what I liked about the show ending so suddenly: loose ends are never tied up in real life.” – Paul Feig, pg. 209

“At the end of the day, none of us is that different. […] The events we experience as human beings are fairly similar. The circumstances are different, and the surroundings and the social strata are different. But, you know, insecurity is insecurity. And loneliness is loneliness. And the basic human circumstances are all the same.” – Paul Feig, pg. 212

“Creativity is our default modus operandi for dealing with existence. Everyone has this ability and uses it every day to solve the most ordinary problems. Honing it into something that can be used on a professional level is another matter.” – Bob Mankoff, pg. 259

“You had to challenge yourself and make sure the premise of a sketch wasn’t something that would be the first or most obvious thing an audience would think of.” – Robert Smigel, pg. 271

“Actors love to act in sketches about a crazy person in a normal situation, and writers love to write sketches about normal people in a crazy situation.” – Robert Smigel, pg. 271

“It’s all about what’s not being said as much as anything else.” – Robert Smigel, pg. 273

“There’s a theory that when you’re young, you define yourself by what you’re not.” – Robert Smigel, pg. 280

“If you think you have some talent, just try to find opportunities. Find like-minded people and keep writing. If you’re good, and maybe lucky, it’ll probably work out. And you won’t hate yourself for not trying.” – Robert Smigel, pg. 289

“That’s the key to life, isn’t it? Acting as if you belong where you want to end up.” – pg. 301

“Humor is a way of getting to an essential truth.” – Marshall Brickman, pg. 309

“I put in ‘call forwards,’ which were new for me. I inserted hints of events that hadn’t yet happened.” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 329

“I started tying things together, trying to make the story the joke – figuring out the last laugh first and then making it the answer to the first joke.” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 331

“Let the creative people do what they feel they have to do.” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 338

“To succeed you need a vision. And maybe not everyone has a vision.” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 339

“If the writer doesn’t like his characters, why should the viewers?” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 341

“You don’t need to live through an experience, necessarily, to write about it with depth and compassion.” – Mitch Hurwitz, pg. 341

“I also became a reader, […] which is so important for a writer.” – David Sedaris, pg. 348

“I don’t want to produce fake emotion; I want real emotion. Whenever it’s time to write an ending, I always think of the endings in the stories that I just love.” – David Sedaris, pg. 364

“It doesn’t occur to them that you have to choose this word over that word – and do so very carefully.” – David Sedaris, pg. 368

“You can’t teach a lot of things. […] In the real world, the most important part is sitting there and writing.” – David Sedaris, pg. 369

“Nobody’s harder on what I write than me.” – David Sedaris, pg. 370

“Sometimes understated and dry is far better than aiming to impress with literary grandstanding.” – Editors, pg. 374

“That quest for vindication is what makes Curb Your Enthusiasm so hysterical.” – George Meyer, pg. 390

“You can’t keep bitch-slapping your creativity, or it’ll run away and find a new pimp.” – George Meyer, pg. 391

“I guess I find life so disappointing that I can’t bear to be a part of the problem.” – George Meyer, pg. 395

“Experience as much as you can and absorb a lot of reality. Otherwise, your writing will have the force of a Wiffle ball.” – George Meyer, pg. 399

“But humor was an outlet for me, an escape. It was an escape from what I saw as idiotic behavior by everyone. I don’t think humor is just here to tickle people. Humor has much deeper roots than that.” – Al Jaffee, pg. 406

“Its great to be a perfectionist, but it is equally important to be a good collaborator.” – Yoni Brenner, pg. 424

“The most satisfying feeling in creative work is when you make something that you know intuitively that no one else could have done. For our purposes, this means finding an angle no one else could find, or making the joke no one else could imagine.” – Yoni Brenner, pg. 425

“I guess I felt a bit like an outsider, but I don’t think that’s too different from how most humor writers feel about their childhoods. I was an introspective person by nature.” – Allison Silverman, pg. 429

“I think it’s vital that comedy writers don’t hole themselves up and work alone. They need to meet and have a community of link-minded people.” – Allison Silverman, pg. 431

“When I took classes from Del Close, he would challenge all of us to wait – to not make the cheap, easy joke in a scene but to have faith that something funnier and more organic was on the way. It can be that way with a career too. There are a lot of times where your biggest task is just to stay calm and keep working.” – Allison Silverman, pg. 442

“The keys to a good packet are variety, concision, and resonance.” – Late Night Writers, pg. 446

“And the truth is that every real writer I know, every professional person who makes a living at writing, treats it like a job. We’re not waiting for inspiration to strike. We’re not bullshitting. We’re in the chair writing every day.” – Adam Mansbach, pg. 495

“Experience has taught me that what seems like a slam dunk rarely makes the most successful finished product.” – Larry Gelbart, pg. 513

“If practice doesn’t make perfect, then it certainly can hone your ability to do the things you want to do.” – Larry Gelbart, pg. 514

“You start out vowing that you’re not going to be cliched, and then you find out that you’ve invented a few cliches of your own.” – Larry Gelbart, pg. 528

“How funny are corporate people? Organization, which is famously known as the death of fun, is now, illogically enough, churning out sitcoms.” – Larry Gelbart, pg. 532

“I now think of writing as a privilege – as a gift that’s been given to me. Any day that I don’t get to write something – anything – is a day I have to spend being someone other than who I am.” – Larry Gelbart, pg. 533

“You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.” – pg. xi

“If you’re unhappy, that’s on you.” – pg. 5

“Moving doesn’t change who you are. It only changes the view outside your window.” – pg. 7

“When you really want something, you will find a way. When you don’t really want something, you’ll find an excuse.” – pg. 14

“In fact, the stones we most often try and fling at others are the ones that have been thrown at us.” – pg. 35

“The issue wasn’t that I didn’t know who I was; the problem was that I didn’t know who I had allowed myself to become.” – pg. 51

“Very few roads to love are easy to navigate.” – pg. 52

“Sometimes choosing to walk away, even if it means breaking your own heart, can be the greatest act of self-love you have access to.” – pg. 53

“That’s the incredible part about your dreams: nobody gets to tell you how big they can be.” – pg. 58

“That is what it boils down to: faith. The belief that your life will unfold as it was meant to, even when it unfolds into something painful and difficult to navigate.” – pg. 108

“You’ve already done little things and big things… Goals you accomplished years ago that are on someone else’s bucket list. Focus on what you have done. […] When you force yourself to admit all the things you have accomplished, you’ll realize that it’s wrong to be so hard on yourself for all the things you haven’t.” – pg. 110

“If we choose to stay underwater without kicking our way to the surface, we eventually forget how to swim.” – pg. 117

“There are hundreds of ways to lose yourself, but the easiest of them is refusing to acknowledge who you truly are in the first place. You – the real you – is not an accident.” – pg. 132

“Calling your shot is powerful when you’re chasing down a dream, but it’s also not enough. You have to spend real time focusing on everything you can about that dream. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How much detail can you imagine? How real can you make it in your own mind?” – pg. 139

“When you’re creating something from your heart, you do it because you can’t not do it.” – pg. 147

“I will not let a nightmare have more power than my dreams.” – pg. 155

“Someday I’ll hold my daughter in my arms and I’ll understand why I waited for her.” – pg. 172

“You’ve got a lifetime of negative talk in your head playing on repeat. You need to replace that voice with something positive. […] So come up with a mantra and say it to yourself a thousand times a day until it becomes real.” – pg. 185

“I heard once that every author has a theme.” – pg. 211

“When we watch, when we listen, we’re not getting away from the world. We’re actually digging in.” – pg. 15

“Making someone laugh is a kind of connection. So is laughing together with other people. So is realizing that other people are amused at or inspired by or curious about the same things you are.” – pg. 63

“When you watch a movie, what you’re looking for on a subconscious level is a piece of yourself to be reflected at you.” – pg. 75

“I don’t want to compete, I want to connect.” – pg. 90

“You connect with people when you’re authentic – when you do things the way that comes naturally.” – pg. 97

“I’m constantly trying to understand who I am so that I can turn the inspiration in my heart into something tangible, into a feeling that can be experienced by someone else.” – pg. 117

“You have to work with people who know how to work hard, and you have to work harder than everyone else.” – pg. 117

“If you want to do something, if you want to make something, if you want to create something, I’ve learned that you can’t be afraid to do it wrong.” – pg. 117

“It takes a lot of hard work to make it look easy.” – pg. 117

“One thing I’ve learned is that I have to let the feelings or ideas that inspire me become what they want to be.” – pg. 125

“You have to understand what makes it resonate.” – pg. 126

“Like Miles Davis said, ‘It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.’ It’s the space between the notes that makes the music.” – pg. 135

“I said, ‘This is why [SexyBack is] going to work. It doesn’t sound like anybody. But it sounds like somebody.’ […] I wanted people to say those words, and feel like they were whoever that character was in that song, however they imagine him to be.” – pg. 140

“The coolest people are the ones who are doing something they’re excited about.” – pg. 164

“I would like to stay in a place where I don’t know exactly what I am, or what I am doing, because I would get to continually discover myself within that.” – pg. 211

“They want to pin you down so they can understand you. They want you to make it easy for them. They want you to walk in a straight line. I say, walk your own line.” – pg. 212

“If I could give a young artist advice about their influences, it would be this: Embrace them.” – pg. 228

“No matter what gets thrown at you, you catch it. You learn from it. And you figure out how to throw it back.” – pg. 228

“As I hit twenty-six and twenty-seven and twenty-eight, I was three different people within those years.” – pg. 234

“I used to think we want to be loved for what we are, but maybe more now, I think we want to be loved for what we aren’t. I think we want to be loved for all our fucked up shit.” – pg. 241

“Everything you’re doing as an adult is to try to heal whatever you’ve built up from our childhood.” – pg. 276