Category: Bookshelf

“I never wrote things down to remember; I always wrote things down so I could forget.” – pg. 5

“I’ve always gotten away with more in life than in my dreams.” – pg. 10

“In time, yesterday’s red light leads us to a greenlight.” – pg. 14

“The first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not I know who I am, but rather I know who I’m not.” – pg. 64

“On my own in this uncomfortable world, I took responsibility for who I was and what I believed in.” – pg. 77

“I carved these words into a tree: less impressed, more involved. The sooner we become less impressed with our life, our accomplishments, our career, our relationships, the prospects in front of us – the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things – the sooner we get better at them.” – pg. 113

“Sometimes we don’t need advice. Sometimes we just need to hear we’re not the only one.” – pg. 149

“Sometimes we have to leave what we know to find out what we know.” – pg. 156

“It’s not about win or lose, it is about do you accept the challenge.” – Issa, pg. 208

“Yes by saying no. […] I had un-branded.” – pg. 260

“I found myself right where I left me.” – pg. 286

“When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze. When you’re stuck in the storm, pray for luck and make the best of it.” – pg. 289

“The stories weren’t joke driven. The comedy focused on human behavior.” – Ken Kwapis, pg. 5

“So many shows are about somebody trying to better themselves or they have some big goal they’re trying to achieve, and that’s not what life is about for most people.” – Clark Duke, pg. 5

“The great, great, great sitcoms of yore all had a simple premise. It’s character driven. Taxi‘s just a fucking taxi place. Cheers is just a bar. That’s all it is. And we were an office.” – Oscar Nunez, pg. 5

“But there were paper companies, obviously. That became interesting to us. It’s something everyone uses, but you never really think about the manufacture or the sale of it. It’s just something everyone has. There’s also something just about the blankness of it, and the anonymity of it.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 17

“There’s that juxtaposition between how you see yourself and how other people see you. That was a big one for me. It was all about that blind spot.” – Ricky Gervais, pg. 18

“I’ve got the attention span of a toddler and I want to do the next thing while I’m doing this thing. The only thing that gives me an adrenaline rush is an idea.” – Ricky Gervais, pg. 23

“It was him just trying to understand the psychology of the characters so he could build the American equivalent, really.” – Stephen Merchant, pg. 27

“Jim is turned slightly away from Pam, so that it takes… this sounds very small, but it’s important… he has to make a choice to turn and look at her.” – Ken Kwapis, pg. 54

“You have to leave a lot of good stuff on the floor.” – Greg Daniels, pg. 75

“We’re going to get up every day, and we’re going to have fun, and we’re going to be funny, and we’re going to make people laugh, and we’re just going to keep doing our jobs.” – Teri Weinberg, pg. 84

“I think the greatest comedy comes from people taking themselves seriously. The circumstances can be absolutely absurd, but if the person is taking the stakes really seriously and taking themselves really seriously, it really is a great comedy mine to dig from.” – Rainn Wilson, pg. 88

“If a person comes in that can do something really well and it’s not quite what you had in mind, you should take them, because they’re going to make the character their own.” – Mark Proksch, pg. 90

“When the character needs love you can play that a little differently than when the character just needs attention.” – Larry Wilmore, pg. 93

“That note from Greg saying ‘Michael’s gotta have heart’ changed it so much. It became ‘Michael wants us to be a family.’ And that’s the core of the show.” – Jason Kessler, pg. 96

“It’s a love story disguised as a workplace comedy.” – Larry Wilmore, pg. 96

“It was all about the framework – that’s a Greg thing: It can’t just be crazy.” – Mindy Kaling, pg. 109

“A national trinket? I can live with that, but I can’t live with a national treasure.” – Creed Bratton, pg. 125

“It’s incredibly fun to play someone that you don’t like. It exorcises your own demons in a way. It’s cathartic.” – Ed Helms, pg. 138

“All the audience wants is for them to be together and have a happy ending, and that is just the death of storytelling.” – Caroline Williams, pg. 143

“The show mixed melancholy and joy in the same space. It’s hard to do, but when it works it’s very special.” Lee Eisenberg, pg. 145

“I remember in season three when Greg Daniels came up to me and started talking about Abbott and Costello. He said, ‘Costello was the funny one, but they paid Abbott more. That’s because it was much harder to find a good straight man to set up the jokes than it was to find the silly guy.’ […] He was basically saying that I was very valuable to the comedy of the show.” – Melora Hardin, pg. 146

“Loneliness is, at least for me, the most universal emotion.” – Caroline Williams, pg. 155

“John was the everyday man of the show. He was the one that was saying, ‘Do you see what I have to deal with every day at work?'” – Matt Sohn, pg. 167

“It can be incredibly frustrating when you’re working on a story and you feel like there’s a story there, but you just don’t have it yet. And then when you have it, there’s just no better feeling.” – Jen Celotta, pg. 205

“There’s story everywhere, it’s just about finding it. When you’re a newer writer it is all about getting out of your own way in order for it to be there. If you’ve set it up, and you have interesting characters, and interesting situations, you will find the story.” – Jen Celotta, pg. 207

“It’s just real. It’s funny, but it never tries to be surreal.” – Brent Forrester, pg. 225

“He was always trying to capture something that’s real about who people are and how they live and feel and love and want and mourn.” – Jeff Blitz, pg. 225

“You’re paying me for the day, you’re giving me a nice comfy trailer, I’ve got a book, and I’m happy.” – Randy Cordray on Kathy Bates, pg. 287

“That’s always the goal, by the way. Even though it’s a comedy, you always want to make people feel. That’s the highest compliment you can get, is to make someone feel something.” – Claire Scanlon, pg. 299

“I think the episode encompasses pretty well what was going on in real life in terms of leaving a workplace that had become pretty much a family and choosing to move on to other things.” – Brian Baumgartner, pg. 331

“‘We are retiring your number on the call sheet. It will never be used by anyone other than Steve Carrell from this day forward on the office. […] From now on until the day you return, all of our call sheets will begin with number two.’ And that had never been done as far as I know in the history of Hollywood.” – Randy Cordray, pg. 336

“People can’t help but change when they have that kind of success.” – Karly Rothenberg, pg. 369

“I think you leave the dance with the date that brought you.” – Owen Ellickson, pg. 374

“I think the simple explanation is that the characters may be exaggerated, but they’re all people you know.” – Briton W. Erwin, pg. 405

“The more realistic a show is, the more you have a chance of emoting and feeling something deep and real.” – Brent Forrester, pg. 408

“It’s never too late in life to find success if you work hard enough.” – Andy Greene, pg. 422

“Because who knows: […] the worst year of your life could turn out to be the best year of your life.” – pg. 45

“I could stay in really well because I went out really well.” – pg. 61

“I miss all the things I never thought I’d have to miss.” – pg. 89

“I keep feeling as if suddenly my own life is not as random but is full of all these connections and coincidences.” – pg. 91

“There is a person out there who has loved me more than anyone and I’ve loved him more than anyone. But he is just a person out there. And that’s how our story has to end.” – pg. 151

“I don’t want to ever be stuck in that very sad trap of thinking your happiness lives in your memories.” – pg. 209

“It makes me feel like time is still linear and the math is linear, in that this much time has passed so that means I must have learned x. But I don’t know what I’ve learned or what I know.” – pg. 253

“I hated the pace of my career at the time, because I’m super fucking impatient, but fast fame would be hard to handle. […] People who get famous very quickly can’t deal with the plethora (is that a word?) of shit that comes their way.” – pg. 49

“Looking back I realize everything happened for a reason, but you could not tell me that then.” – pg. 70

“They laughed and then one said, mostly to his buddy, ‘If I ever wake up the day after a gig and there’s money in my pocket I know I did something wrong.’ They both cracked up at this. I’m not sure why I remember that exchange so vividly, but it stuck with me. Those guys were just doing gigs to tread water. […] I wanted a life out of it.” – pg. 72

“I’m just as competitive as the next guy, but if you handle competition like a dick, you’ll end up ruining your career and your friendships.” – pg. 130

“I do try to be valuable. I try to bring whatever I can to the table. I want whatever project I’m on to do well.” – pg. 150

“When people are better than you don’t be jealous. Respect it and use it to drive yourself to be better.” – pg. 150

“Throwaway jokes like that are important. They don’t get huge laughs but they’re nice texture and they carry the style of your humor across. […] Those are my favorite kinds of jokes, the ones that pay off the tenth time you see the film.” – pg. 169

“People forget that making a shitty movie is just as hard as making a good one.” – pg. 170

“Taking things too far was the thing that made him Chris [Farley]. but it was also the thing that took him away in the end. I miss the guy every day.” – pg. 177

“Supposedly when someone asked [George Clooney], ‘Why aren’t you married? Aren’t you afraid of being lonely?’ he replied, ‘The loneliest I’ve ever been was when I was married.'” – pg. 210

“Doorknobs and handles are the jewelry of your house.” – pg 39

“‘You don’t wear sweatpants on an airplane,’ [my grandmother] used to say. ‘It’s a privilege to fly. Make sure you wear a nice outfit.'” – pg. 49

“I think you gotta get up, you gotta work out, and then you gotta get dressed in a real proper outfit by ten in the morning.” – pg. 49

“You have to think of each new party as an opportunity to make new memories.” – pg. 64

“I always had a song in my heart and I really enjoyed performing. [But] learning what I wasn’t good at was just as important as learning what I was.” – pg. 128

“Beware of anyone who goes on and on about their ‘perfect’ marriage. It’s usually not the full truth.” – pg. 144

“Do not let anyone pressure you into having random people at your wedding. […] It’s about real vulnerability, and you are the ones who gets to choose who sees that vulnerability.” – pg. 144

“Life has many different chapters, and every chapter deserves celebrating.” – pg. 146

“People aren’t pretty if they act ugly.” – pg. 84

“To have a good friend, be a good friend.” – pg. 229

“Charity starts at home, in your neighborhood.” – pg. 292

“I loved you for so many fucking years. But you know what? You didn’t exist. You don’t exist. You’re not there. You’re not there. You were a fucking made up thing in my head.” – Johnny Depp

“A few years ago someone asked me what lesson I learned from hopping the plane. I said the lesson I learned was that I could get what I want with a break-the-rules, everything-is-an-adventure, people-are-mostly-good mentality.” – pg. 44

“But they [partied] all summer long, all the time. […] I wasn’t willing to waste that kind of time. None of those people ended up making it.” – pg. 107

“It’s important to go to the people who love you and who want to work with you as opposed to trying to convince people who don’t. […] No matter how far you’ve come, what level of success you’ve achieved, you’re always going to have to get to the next place, so you might as well enjoy where you are. Be creative and enjoy your work. Just enjoy the process.” – pg. 121

“I was close to giving up. Maybe I didn’t have what it took. That’s when the call came, of course.” – pg. 154

“I believe so strongly that you need to build your relationships with the people you click with.” – pg. 191

“Death brings up so much. All the love and truth can pour out at the end.” – pg. 266

“There are no small parts.” – pg. 276

“It’s good to be responsible, but there’s no point in being so stressed that you can’t adjust or bend the rules a little when necessary.” – pg. 281

“You have to write, because nobody will be able to write the thing for you that you probably should be doing.” – pg. 16

“You’re the cheapest person available to write your own screenplay. Why don’t you do it?” – Cameron Crowe, pg. 37

“It’s a soup of true and made-up stuff trying to capture the essence of something.” – pg. 39

“We want to tell stories that make people want to take the risk to love better or connect more, to take a risk and improve somehow.” – Cameron Crowe, pg. 45

“I think it’d be better for everyone if they all expressed themselves through art, culture, through making things, but a lot of people just don’t want to, because they couldn’t care less and they’re happy as can be.” – pg. 67

“It’s normal to get depressed after success, because you realize that it doesn’t really make you happy in your core.” – pg. 81

“You can’t paint everybody with the same brush.” – Gayle King, pg. 100

“Yes, I think most comedians are trying to make sense of the universe. And comedy is their way of expressing their search.” – pg. 105

“People don’t have any compassion for the amount of stress creative people are under to do their work.” – pg. 127

“There’s also the option of doing nothing, and I don’t think we really embrace that enough. I think sometimes people talk when they shouldn’t. There’s an eloquence and a grace in not talking sometimes.” – Hannah Gadsby, pg. 136

“I feel like there’s a journey that so many comedians go through. You start out with an instinct to be funny – sometimes it’s driven by resentment – and then, slowly, you realize that it’s actually about personal self-discovery.” – pg. 147

“What you feel more often is I don’t know if they can convince people to see it, but I know that this is great. And at some point, a certain amount of people will recognize that. I want any movie I make to be good enough that the people who like it think that it’s amazing, even if it’s fewer people overall.” – pg. 156

“You’re trying to paint around the edges of something enough for somebody to see what’s not there. What you didn’t write.” – Jeff Tweedy, pg. 158

“It takes a lot of discipline just to clear your head enough to go into a space that has nothing to do with all the things happening in the world. To tune in to your own stuff.” – pg. 163

“One thing I appreciate about comedy is when bad things happen, I always think, I can put this to good use.“ – pg. 164

“I think that people are born creators. People are walking around creating all the time, and they don’t understand what they’re doing. […] Allow yourself to make things like you did when you were a little kid. You didn’t care if it was good or bad; it was just a fucking miracle that you did something and Mom and Dad hung it on the refrigerator.” – Jeff Tweedy, pg. 167

“Python is just saying, ‘Life is insane. This planet that we’re on, it’s ridiculous, nothing works, and nobody knows what they’re doing.’” – John Cleese, pg. 207

“There are far more people who are less talented but who are obsessed who will make it than people who are super talented but don’t have the patience to put in the time.” – Mindy Kaling, pg. 285

“They say that most filmmakers or writers write the same story every time, even if they think they’re doing something different.” – pg. 287

“My weird instinct is to feel like I planned poorly, rather than just realize that life can’t be controlled.” – Nathan Fielder, pg. 303

“You want to hear one that is actually in line with helping and with understanding what’s going on, even if that joke encompasses the lack of understanding people have.” – Ramy Youssef, pg. 330

“That is the insecurity of any artistic business where it’s not a science. We’ve just got hunches. Sometimes you’re wrong.” – Sacha Baron Cohen, pg. 372

“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” – T.S. Eliot, pg. 39

“A lot of people think they know exactly what they want. They become so adamant that it can only be one way that they end up missing out on all of the other amazing things that can happen.” – pg. 66

“If I was going to have an encounter with someone famous, I wanted it to be a hang, not some awkwardly forced fan moment.” – pg. 70

“One of the most important things I’ve learned is that it’s not about what you think you know; it’s about knowing what you don’t know. It can be the difference between living your dream or dying in someone else’s.” – pg. 102

“When I’m good, I’m good. When I’m no good, I’m better.” – pg. 141

“Empowerment has nothing to do with the way you look and has everything to do with how you feel and who you are.” – pg. 168

“I think it’s crazy that we let words have so much power over us. As a woman, the word ‘cunt’ doesn’t bother me any more than any other word because, you know what, some people are cunts. Which could be a compliment or an insult. Either way, it’s the truth.” – pg. 233

“I just think people need to lighten the fuck up. If you didn’t take yourself so seriously, those words wouldn’t give you an emotional conniption.” – pg. 236

“The beautiful thing about memories is that every single day is an opportunity to make new ones.” – pg. 242

“When you build something up that much, it can never live up to your expectations.” – pg. 252

“Nobody is who you build them up to be in your head. Nobody.” – pg. 256

“The Japanese say you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and family. The third face, you never show to anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are.” – pg. 262

“How the fuck do you not give a fuck and give all the fucks at the same time? It’s the key to life.” – pg. 271

“The big reveal is that truth is in the dead space, the breathing, and the pauses, not in the questions and answers.” – pg. 339

“I’m not trying to be brave. I’m just trying to be me.” – pg. 430

“Mathematics may be the more sophisticated and elegant language of the universe, but down here on planet earth, it doesn’t hold a candle to cursing, its way cuter and far more relatable, colloquial cousin (twice removed).” – pg. 433

“There is a fuck hidden deep inside of each and every one of us. It’s up to you to find it and give it!” – pg. 434

“Right now, as you read this, we are flying. We are born flying and we die flying. We’ve never not been flying.” – pg. 24

“I really identified as a Bostonian for the first time in my life. I drew strength from it. My wife wasn’t from Boston – she sucks! I’m from Boston – I’ll get through this!” – pg. 84

“I knew crying was like throwing up for your soul. You never really want to, but you know you’ll feel better if you can just get it over with.” – pg. 86

“God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape.” – Barry Taylor, pg. 149

“Comedians will never feel at home in the clapping masses. We will always crave to be seated at the table of misfits in the back, cracking sarcastic jokes.” – pg. 211

“I was riding with Bill Burr in a golf cart in between takes when he said to me, ‘Look at this! Your own fucking HBO show. If this doesn’t make you happy, nothing will!’ Bill had no idea.” – pg. 243

“Go ahead, live in the world. Make mistakes, get your heart broken, lose your job, fight with your mother, eat the fucking onion dip… Just don’t forget who you are.” – pg. 253

“Look at the follies and trials and pains of your life as what they really are: good episodes. Boyfriend cheated on you? Good episode. Backstabbed by your best friend? Whoa. We have to watch the next one.” – pg. 253

“The final step in every hero’s journey is to come back. You return to the village, the same but different.” – pg. 293