Paul Reubens
I think my entire career path was determined for me when I was 6 years old, watching reruns of 'I Love Lucy' on TV and thinking about making people laugh.
I probably have become more infamous from two misdemeanors than probably anyone I could think of.
Look at me, I'm getting defensive about something that happened so many years ago, somebody said. I'll have to find out who that was and if he's still alive.
The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that's really intense. That's something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something's out there in the air that is really bad.
The public may think I'm weird. They may think I'm crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That's all fine. As long as one of the things you're not thinking about me is that I'm a pedophile. Because that's not true.
But I don't know. Pee-wee just kind of popped out one day, pretty much fully fleshed-out and fully formed.
I've always felt like a kid, and I still feel like a kid, and I've never had any problem tapping into my childhood, and my kid side.
I was Pee-wee Herman for so many years that it wasn't really a question that I didn't want to do other things.
The public already knows about me more than I ever wanted it to know.
I would love to be in Kansas.
I'm just trying to illustrate that it's okay to be different - not that it's good, not that it's bad, but that it's all right. I'm trying to tell kids to have a good time and to encourage them to be creative and to question things.Collection: Kids
People read so much into what I do. It's fascinating to me because some of it's probably there, but I haven't thought of it.Collection: People
I know you are, but what am I?Collection: Knows
I enjoy getting to be arty and quirky and weird and all the things that I don't have that much choice with. You just sort of use what you got.Collection: Choices
I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!Collection: Money
I've always felt like a kid, and I still feel like a kid, and I've never had any problem tapping into my childhood, and my kid side. And I think that's a very universal thing, I don't think it's unique to me at all. People I've talked to in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s have all told me "You know, I still feel 20." So I don't expect that I'm going to be any different.Collection: Kids
I'm fortunately not in a situation where someone owns me.Collection: Situation
I'm right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn't have been me.Collection: Hands
It's a lot easier to say you're a comic than a performance artist.Collection: Artist
I've been super lucky in that I've either been in or helped create situations where I do what I want. I'm super lucky. I get to do what I want and create art and make people laugh, and it's really fun.Collection: Art
I call it... the hot dog tree, because... it's a hot dog tree.Collection: Cute
I was looking for a last name that was a first name. Growing up, I knew a kid who was the most obnoxious kid I ever knew, and his last name was Herman.Collection: Growing Up
Why would I, in a million years, want to do anything even remotely having to do with child molestation on a children's show? See, I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.Collection: Children
There were just things in Disney movies that probably were too scary for kids.Collection: Kids
I don't think Bruce Willis can compete with me. I have a much better voice.Collection: Thinking
I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.Collection: Real
I've always been very interested in ensemble work. One reason why I don't go out and do a stand-up act is that I did it once and I found it unsatisfying. I don't really like being out there by myself. I like reacting with other people.Collection: People
There were nude pictures... a lot of it is erotic or sexual. But I don't view my collection as dirty in any way. I view it as art.Collection: Art
I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it's so much more real.Collection: Real
I don't really want to direct myself, but I'm certainly torn in that direction.Collection: Want
I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, "It may appear that I'm going to go haywire, but I'm not." I always map out what I'm going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.Collection: Maps
I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn't quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.Collection: Thinking
When I was about five my dad built a stage for me in our basement. A full stage, with a curtain, a backdrop and a dressing room. There were three colored spotlights - a red one, a white one, and a blue one. Blue was for nighttime scenes, and red was for when we were in hell. If the neighborhood kids wanted to use the stage, they had to incorporate me into the play.Collection: Dad
I'm the person with the final say on everything. I really love being in that position.Collection: Love Is
Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don't know any jokes to tell. And when I do they're really flat and don't work.Collection: Facts
We're in a situation now where fewer and fewer small films get made. People want these big giant tentpole sort of things, and I don't know, it's getting harder and harder to make a small movie.Collection: People
I'd love to work with Francis Ford Coppola. I met Coppola on an airplane.Collection: Airplane
You'd get on the plane; and every single person is somebody really, really famous. It just killed me. On one flight you'd have Linda Gray, O.J. Simpson, Robert De Niro, Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds... and Francis Ford Coppola.Collection: Flight
Yeah, this is what I think was a quality of movies, is you're in a group of people. You're sharing something with people. Whether those other people make you laugh more, you're all laughing. You're all happy together. There's something... manmade about that in a way that's - I'm not sure how that manifests itself in nature, but culturally we've set that up when we invented theater and the movies and all that stuff.Collection: Thinking
I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it."Collection: Character
In my experience I haven't met too many uptight black people. I'm sure they're out there. Like I'm some big authority and I've lived in the inner city and ghetto.Collection: Ghetto
A large part of the reason I want to be so mysterious is so that I can move on and do something serious at some point in my career X years from now. It might be very difficult otherwise, because I'm... wildCollection: Moving
I can sit in the room with the other writers and just keep saying no until there's something I really like or until I come up with something. In that respect the proportion of what's mine and what's other people's is controlled by me. It isn't even fair to talk about.Collection: People
I feel the only way I'm going to be successful in moving on is if I keep a separation.Collection: Moving
I can be on the Tonight Show, but not with Johnny [Carson]. He uses my name in his monologue all the time.Collection: Names
It's the most natural progression for me to becoming a singing sensation next. And so many people have offered to be on it. Eddie Van Halen... and Prince, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper will probably be a backup trio.Collection: People
The original suit was designed by a guy named Mr. Jay from Hollywood. But nowadays I'm having the suit duplicated. At this point I have about three good suits and about three really raggedy ones.Collection: Guy
I'd love to do a talk show. But I'm too busy for it. It's just too much work.Collection: Too Much
I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.Collection: Kids
I was looking to be pale, you know, like the kind of person who has that pigment in their skin where no matter what the weather is they have pink cheeks. I had a couple of friends like that. But it was all very instinctive in a way. I never really thought that much about it.Collection: Couple