Michael Ian Black Quotes
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I loved Dungeons & Dragons. Actually, not so much the actual playing as the creation of characters and the opportunity to roll twenty-sided dice. I loved those pouches of dice Dungeon Masters would trundle around, loved choosing what I was going to be: warrior, wizard, dwarf, thief.
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I think in doing stand-up there are no rules and there's no architecture.
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Sometimes the criticism is actually useful and constructive and actually informs what I do, but most of the time, it's sort of mindless, or they're receiving something on a different frequency than I was sending it. They're just not getting what I'm doing, and that's fine.
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I'm very introverted, so it requires a huge effort for me to put on a smile and extend a hand and accept compliments. I would much rather be insulted than complimented any day.
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Shuffling really isn't something you should be doing on your deathbed.
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So my reaction to hearing this corny-ass, horrible song "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed is violent, uncontrollable, sustained weeping.
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The whole idea of punk rock is that you're dressing yourself in a crazy leather jacket with safety pins and a Mohawk. The idea of being the rebel is a boring societal idea. It's such a type. And that's what I was, without knowing it.
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You have to lead, in the case of a game show, a contestant through the architecture of the show. So there's a lot of rules there, literal and implied, that you have to navigate.
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I probably should be thinking of better ideas on how to promote myself, but I don't really spend a lot of time doing it. I really don't know how to promote effectively.
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My fear is if I expose myself, not so much that I'll be hurt, but that the reaction will be "Is that all there is? Is that the entirety of you? Because it's boring."
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The characters that I have on Twitter have very little resemblance to me, the person who's writing them.
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My absolute favorite growing up was Super Friends. The assemblage of so many mighty heroes in one place was, to me, mind-blowing. It was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, and then sometimes Hawkman and some other, lesser heroes.
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It doesn't matter what you're chasing, when you get there you're gonna be like, "Oh, is this all? It kind of sucks."
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Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic, but don't give it more attention than it deserves.
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I think writing for anybody helps you order your life. It helps you arrange your emotions and your thoughts and it helps to provide perspective.
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I'm not sure what it would mean to have "made it." Made what? Yes, I can make a decent living in show business, so if that's the criteria, then I've made it. But that doesn't feel that important to me. The stuff that matters to me are the new challenges. I know that sounds hokey, but it's true.
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I thought I'd be living a much more bohemian life and be very poor. I never thought I'd do comedy or be married living in the suburbs. Every time I try to plan my life out it just doesn't come to pass, and I think that's a great experience.
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I imagine there's a level of narcissism that goes into thinking you're enough.
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I was very surprised how many people were earnestly reminiscing about the '80s. It's such a stupid thing to do, like, to be honestly invested in nostalgia. It never even occurred to me to do that.
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Whatever expectations I had for myself, none of them have come to pass. I grew up thinking I was going to be an actor, which I am. But I thought I'd be a very serious sort of Shakespearean guy going from town to town having sex with various Juliets all over the country.
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Any time I am involved in something from conception to execution, that's obviously a lot more personal, and I'm going to be more invested in it than something where I just show up for a couple days, shoot, and leave.
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Super excited about things I'm going to do; never excited about things I'm actually doing.
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Things you never thought were going to turn into something end up being the most important things in your life. You have to learn to not try to control it.
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Lordy, lordy, lordy do I love money. It is a character flaw, no doubt, one that springs from a panicked childhood in which I always felt as if our family was only a couple missed child support payments from being tossed onto the pitiless streets of our suburban New Jersey town.