I've gotten very cynical and kind of anhedonic about all the things I have to do to get to do comedy: all the travel, hotels, and airports. Patton Oswalt More Quotes by Patton Oswalt More Quotes From Patton Oswalt You just do as many shows as you can to hone what it is you're working on. Patton Oswalt shows With a comedian, it's the opposite. You put that album out, and they've heard it. If they're coming out to see you, you'd better be doing new stuff. There's always a tiny part of the audience that want to hear certain bits of yours, or they've brought friends to see you, and they've told them about some of your bits. Then maybe you should do them. Patton Oswalt comedian opposites stuff The process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on. Patton Oswalt hours night moving The apocalypse is coming, that's the one thing I like about George Bush, I really think he can get us into the ... apocalypse, like the BIBLICAL ... I really think he believes that he'll be the guy in the white hat. I think he's read the Stephen King novel The Stand a couple times, and he really thinks there's a dark man in the desert somewhere and he's gonna fight him or something. Patton Oswalt couple kings believe I'm glad that that era of stand-up is over, because I think it adversely affected a lot of people who could have been really, really great comedians. Because they unconsciously or subconsciously stifled their wild impulses, and were thinking about the five clean minutes for The Tonight Show, or the 20-minute sitcom pitch as a stand-up act. Patton Oswalt comedian people thinking As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative. Patton Oswalt method acting people 90% of every art form is garbage - dance and stand-up, painting and music. Focus on the 10% that's good, suck it up, and drive on. Patton Oswalt garbage focus art There's no destination. There's no getting anywhere. There's just the going. The key to life is to make the going really fun. Because people that are like, “If I just get to this, then boom!” And then they get there and there's this dawning of an afterwards. Whereas I'm just always in the going. And it's not a frantic going like, “I gotta keep going or I'm gonna go nuts!” I can not do anything for weeks or months if I need to and just sit and read books or watch movies. I'm just as fine consuming and absorbing new art as I am trying to make it. But it's all in the going. Patton Oswalt fun book art Any comedian who tells you how dark and dangerous they are, they're not dark and dangerous. Patton Oswalt comedian dangerous dark I have to drink this much to be as unfunny as you. Patton Oswalt drink I'm grateful that I had that uphill battle for 10 years of going onstage and having nobody know who I was, because you have to win them over. Patton Oswalt grateful winning years I have a lot of friends who were stand-ups, and they just stopped after a while, because they didn't like that battle, or they just couldn't do it. And then they would get on a sitcom and get visible and get back into it, because the audience was just way easier on them. But they lost those crucial years of learning to turn any audience into your audience. Patton Oswalt battle way years I'm so beyond genre, drama, comedies, I just want to do really good, interesting projects. Patton Oswalt want drama interesting If you actually do cold readings, it's very close to how people actually talk, because you're experiencing these thoughts anew every moment, and trying to make them come out coherently. Patton Oswalt reading trying people I'm not familiar with the metric system. Patton Oswalt metric-system metrics familiar You know, in Los Angeles, you're constantly in your car, you're sealed up, you're not walking around. Whereas in New York, after a while, all your stuff is kind of public, in one way or the other. I'm not saying either one of those is bad; they're both great for a very specific kind of comedian. And I'm glad that they both exist. Patton Oswalt comedian car new-york I'm always trying out new stuff onstage. That's where I do all my writing. Patton Oswalt always-trying stuff writing I really had to imagine the kind of person that I would have been if I had never left my hometown... I don't think I would have been a very pleasant person. Patton Oswalt hometown kind thinking I think most comedians go through that (period), where you have to change or evolve. You don't want to just keep doing variations on the same themes. And, besides, it would look kinda creepy for a guy my age to be doing stuff that, like, a 20-year-old would do. 'Yeah, this is bullshit!' It's, like, 'Really? You don't have bigger concerns at this point in your life?' Patton Oswalt bullshit years thinking I'm such a bookworm, and I'm such a people-watcher. It took the Internet a while to catch on in Ireland, because the culture there is, you go to the pub and talk to people there, and that's how you get the news and all the gossip. You just do it face to face. And culturally, you just couldn't understand. Patton Oswalt gossip faces people
