Louis C. K.
My show is sort of a short-film anthology, and I'm able to tell little stories that don't necessarily carry a whole episode in terms of narrative. I like the audience not being sure what they're getting. I think it's more fun to watch something when you're discovering it as you go along.Collection: Fun
The only road to good shows is bad ones. Just go start having a bad time, and if you don't give up, you will get better.Collection: Giving Up
I do have very deep, fond memories of my family in Mexico City, but I also remember feeling funny for not speaking English - I was basically an immigrant. But I picked up the language fast and soon I knew that I wanted to be a writer.Collection: Memories
I wish I could [keep a journal]. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something.Collection: Writing
Sometimes I just want to tell a story regardless of whether it fits what the show is saying. I’ve been in a lot of writing rooms where somebody says an idea and everyone’s dying, like laughing so they’re delirious. It’s like a black hole in a good way, everything starts to fall into it, you know what I mean.Collection: Fall
To me, there's a huge difference between criticism and reviewing. I really love reading good criticism of television and film. To me, a critic is someone who analyzes a show, describes it, talks about the people in it, puts it in historical context of other shows like it, compares it and stuff, and then talks about the intent of the show and whether it failed or didn't.Collection: Reading
You can do eight things. We got it down to eight for you.Collection: Eight
Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different... Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.Collection: Character
I don't know if you've ever had just five dollars in the bank, but I've found that if that's all you have, you can't get it out.Collection: Dollars
You're a tourist in sexual perversion. I'm a prisoner there.Collection: Tourists
You need to build an ability to just be yourself, and not be doing something.Collection: Being Yourself
When you're a father in a marriage, you sort of become the mother's assistant, and you sort of get a list from her every day, and you do, you know, you run down the list, and it feels very much like a chore. And a lot of fathers live in kind of an avoidance. They sit on the toilet for several hours a day... Oh, honey, it took me 40 minutes to go to the post office... But once you become a dad without the mom there, you have to take it all on, and you sort of activate male skills that you didn't know you could apply to fatherhood.Collection: Mother
You have to be able to do a bunch of things at once, and not think about things you're not doing while you're doing other things. You have to be disciplined about not trying to do everything, all at the same time. It's hard and fun.Collection: Fun
You could drive a rental car until you don't want it. Just get out of it while it's moving and just walk away. No, I don't feel like being in that car any longer. Just call Hertz. Hi, your car is drifting into the intersection of 28th and Broadway, if you're interested. It's now your problem.Collection: Moving
When I was a kid there was a show called 'Holmes & Yo-Yo' about a robot cop. I LOVED that show and I think it only lasted like three episodes.Collection: Kids
If you had a jetpack you'd be like I have the shittiest jetpack. Who's your service provider on your jetpack? Did they make the new one? I hate this thing.Collection: Hate
It’s been a very old thing for people to gather together and laugh at stuff. The first comedian in America really was Abraham Lincoln. He used to go to a pub near where he lived and stand in front of the fire and he packed the place every night and he would just talk and bust everybody in their guts. He was just a hilarious speaker and that’s what he did.Collection: Night
You have to be really tenacious. You have to keep at it. There are many roads to get there. If you can get yourself into Harvard, that's a good way to go, because every Harvard graduating class, the agencies come trolling around and they'll look for you. So if you go to Harvard, you'll get found there.Collection: Agency
Credibility lasts about two cycles of bad material, and then you'll probably never get it back. If you let people down, that's really hard to come back from - harder than climbing from nothing to something, even.Collection: Climbing
The earliest stand-up comedy I was aware of was Bill Cosby. I watched Saturday Night Live as soon as I was aware of it, and Monty Python used to be on PBS at weird hours, so I used to try to watch that. And I loved George Carlin on SNL, that was the first stand-up I ever really remember seeing on TV. And then Steve Martin. I guess I was in fifth or sixth grade when Steve Martin showed up, and he was instantly my idol. And Richard Pryor around the same time too, I sort of became aware of him, though I don't remember the first time I saw him.Collection: Night
The Jackass movies are honestly some of the best movies I've ever seen. I laugh so hard at them. Those guys are geniuses. If they had grown up with a different group of people, they could've been performance artists at Bard College, and people would be writing papers about them.Collection: Writing
I was talking to my friend and he said his girlfriend was mad at him. I said, "What happened?" He goes: "Well, I guess I, uh... I guess I said something, and, uh... and then she got her feelings hurt." That's a weird way to phrase it: "She got her feelings hurt. I said something, and then she..." Could you more remove yourself from responsibility? "She got her feelings hurt." It's like saying, "Yeah, I shot this guy in the face, and then I guess he got himself murdered. I don't know what happened. He leaned into it."Collection: Funny
I don't feel those limits when I'm on stage. For some reason, audiences let me get away with things. Remember, it's all comedy. Words. Thoughts. All thoughts are safe and worth exploring.Collection: Safe
Rob McElhenney who runs 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.' That show absolutely kills me and I am stunned by the consistency of greatness it has maintained over what is now a record breaking amount of seasons ... How do you do that for so many years? My 14-year-old daughter and I watch it together and we both laugh crazy hard.Collection: Running
Either I'll never get rich from the show but remain intensely proud of the work and stand behind every second of it, or it catches on and I'll make my money down the road.Collection: Proud
You have to do a show as honestly as you can. But you also can't afford skepticism, because it's preparing for failure, which is useless.Collection: Useless
I grew up in a generation that had exponential technological advances.Collection: Generations
If the whole country had to have the same conversation that was safe for everybody, it would be a pretty awful place to live. There wouldn't be a conversation.Collection: Country
Plenty of crazy people in New York. There are so many crazy people here, I think it's like one out of every one person is completely out of their mind.Collection: New York
When you're a father in a marriage, you sort of become the mother's assistant, and you sort of get a list from her every day, and you do, you know, you run down the list, and it feels very much like a chore.Collection: Mother
I don't have sex drive... I have sex 'just sit in the car and hope someone gets in'.Collection: Sex
For years, Blockbuster Video has edited movies. Like The Bad Lieutenant, when he's masturbating while the girls in the car are doing the thing. I rented it from Blockbuster and sped to that scene, and it was gone. I called up Blockbuster, and I'm like, "I got an erection, and the scene's not there."Collection: Funny
If you do something and people think you're stupid, just go for crazy. You get more respect that way because nobody likes stupid people.Collection: Crazy
If you have something to say, here's what you do: You write it down on a piece of paper, you go out in the lobby, and then you go home and you kill yourself.Collection: Home
Don't text or twitter during the show. Just live your life. Don't keep telling people what you're doing. Just, because also - also - it lights up your big dumb face.Collection: Light
If I found myself alone on planet Earth, no other humans, I would have sex with a monkey in like two minutes. Two minutes. That's really not long enough to be sure you're alone on the Earth, even. That's like... I walk outside, it's- there's not much traffic. "Oh, my God, it's just me! I'm gonna have sex with a monkey right now. Oh, no-there's a person."Collection: Funny
One time, I threw a candy wrapper on the street. I was with a friend who said to me, You just littered on the street! Don't you care about the environment? And I thought about it, and I said, You know what? This isn't the environment. This is New York City. New York City is not the environment. New York City is a giant piece of litter. Next to Mexico City, it's the shittiest piece of litter in the world. Just a pussy, runny, smokin', stinkin' piece of litter.Collection: New York
I've always got the road. Stand-up makes you so autonomous and self-sufficient that it really helps with that part of show business.Collection: Self
We have white people problems in America. You know what that is? That's when your life is amazing, so you just make stuff up to get worried about.Collection: White
The ability to just sit there. That's being a person.Collection: Ability
My show is sort of a short-film anthology, and I’m able to tell little stories that don’t necessarily carry a whole episode in terms of narrative. I like the audience not being sure what they’re getting. I think it’s more fun to watch something when you’re discovering it as you go along.Collection: Fun
You have to be able to do a bunch of things at once, and not think about things you’re not doing while you’re doing other things. You have to be disciplined about not trying to do everything, all at the same time. It’s hard and fun.Collection: Fun
It’s more fun to experience things when you don’t know what’s going to happen.Collection: Fun