Michael Ian Black Quotes
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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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Kids love to be silly, they love to laugh, so I think it was natural for my kids to like the sort of books that I write - and it's the only kinds of books I'm capable of writing.
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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.
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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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I hope you die.... P.S. If you do die, I'm going to go to the funeral and finger your corpse.
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My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob. And proud of it.
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If I revise a children's book, if I'm spending three hours on the first draft, I'm probably spending 30 minutes revising it. I mean, come on! But to redo a painting? That's hard work.
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I never really understood what was expected of me as a man, or how I was supposed to interact with women, but worse, with other guys. I did not relate to them.
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There is something about the human condition. I don't think dogs are like "If only I was a poodle instead of a golden retriever, I'd be totally happy." Dogs are happy with who they are.
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Part of what's exciting to me about my career is the constant looking forward. Whenever I finish one project, I am looking to what's next.
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The thing about narcissistic people is that they don't think they're being narcissistic.
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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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I don't chase after things, but I put forward the effort and know the rest of it is out of my hands.
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Internet fame is like regular fame only without all the annoying 'money' and 'power.'
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I take my coffee like I take my women... strong... black... and proud.
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That's been my fear all along. That I'm not enough, and I still don't trust at all that I am.
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With stand-up, you can be as freeform as you want to be. You can say what you want, how you want, at any moment without constraint.
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I'm trying to teach my children not to cry. That's the big thing. No crying. Because I think we can all agree that crying is, for the most part, for sissies. If my team loses, I'm going to cry. And I'm going to want my kids to see me crying. Not because I think sports are so important, but because I bet so much money on the game that we'll probably lose the house if my team doesn't win. That's something to cry about.
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You can't write a children's book that takes more than five or six minutes to read, because it will drive the parents batty. It has to be compact. Nobody thinks about the parents when they write these stupid books. I could write longer children's books, but it would actually be bad if I did.
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When you're writing something, and you're putting yourself out there, or you're performing and someone comes in and savages that, then of course it feels personal. It doesn't feel like it's just business, because there's no business - it's not like we're conducting business, this anonymous critic and I. It's just that this person is tearing me a new asshole.
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I don't watch that much comedy. I think it's professional jealousy. That and a lack of support for my community.
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There's things I know I'm good at, and those things interest me less and less. I learn a lot more from doing it wrong than I do from doing it right.
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The illustrators work so much harder on the books than the writers do. I mean, that's so much work doing what they do, and it's terrible for them.
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I don't think I was awake for much of my childhood. I did a lot of napping. This might have been a defensive measure against encroaching depression. Until about the age of eleven or twelve, I had zero interests other than trying to steal gumballs from supermarket gumball machines.