Top 80 Quotes & Sayings by Brett Gelman - Page 2

I like being strange. I like being hyperbolic and surreal.

I look upon 'A Little Bit of Luck' as a very bizarre, happy, surreal memory.

We spend so much of our lives doing math problems on how to feel good. It's such a waste of time. You're going to feel how you feel. It's hard to just set up a way that you're going to live your life that is going to be just endlessly happy and healthy. That's impossible.

I always at least try to come from some sort of human place no matter how ridiculous the character is. That's really awesome. That is more the work that I'm leaning towards doing.

One of the things I was taught was how you deal with language. It's important, very important in comedy.

I think the thing that really started setting my career on the course that it's on is when I did '1000 Cats' on 'Funny or Die Presents' on HBO. That's what I feel like kind of got me a little bit more into the system.

'The Producers' is my favorite movie, and my favorite performances of all time are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and I feel like I strive to be a combination of those two guys.

I think some people watch 'Raging Bull,' or they watch 'The Piano Teacher,' and I think they're more, maybe, able to process an antihero in a dramatic context, where people more want comedy to take care of them. But that's not really taking care of people. That's just providing escape, which sometimes is necessary.

I've definitely seen people get angry or really uncomfortable with stuff I've made in the past. And my stand-up, if you could call what I do stand-up, is quite aggressive, too.

I love taking on roles that other people have written for me just as much as I take on writing - just not as much of a, 'Oh, that guy.' I want people to start saying, 'Oh, Brett Gelman's new piece is coming out. That's a Brett Gelman movie. That's a a Brett Gelman show.'

We have to laugh at how hard life can be and how screwed up we can be at times... It's a really freeing process when you're not hitting the jokes too hard.

I'm an actor. I've always been an actor. I've always approached all my comedy as an actor. I don't really care about jokes either. I tire of jokes.

I think that life is very dark at times and there are things that are very funny about that.

Even the people who do great jokes, [it's] always coming out of a very real place.

Comedy is about flaws anyway... There's a lot of humor in the dark areas of life.

Woody Allen - nobody has been a better joke teller than him - and even in his great films, it's always coming out of the character. If you don't have that, jokes are just empty and I think that people rely too much on jokes.

I'm an obvious example of how everyone is spiraling out of control on the show and just trying to live life the best they can without destroying themselves.

I've definitely had my hard partying moments. I've definitely had the long stretches of time in my personal life where I've felt an intense loneliness and a desperation to feel something real and to have something that truly meant something in my life.

I'm not someone who shies away from darkness being funny.

I'm not a stranger to depression and desperation. I can be kind of tortured but I do like to have a lot of fun.