Patton Oswalt Quotes & Sayings

Zombies can't believe the energy we waste on nonfood pursuits. — Patton Oswalt

Doing 'Young Adult' was really reassuring to me in a lot of ways. It confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about great actors. — Patton Oswalt

Yeah, there were a few years in the early nineties where I really began to hate what was valued as funny and just sort of what was valued in stand-up, period. — Patton Oswalt

To get asked to do stuff like 'United States Of Tara' and 'Caprica' is terrific. I can't complain. — Patton Oswalt

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

I'm sitting at the bar, rearranging the order of my jokes. I'm under the delusion that I'm having bad shows because of some cosmic misalignment of words, phrases, and ideas. I may as well have cast runes into a spirit bowl, hoping that the collective heart of the audience would open to my necromantic call. Maybe that's how jugglers do it. Those guys never have shitty sets. — Patton Oswalt

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

In my mind, I was always a comedian who was going to branch into writing. — Patton Oswalt

I grew up in such a featureless, personality-less suburb. There was nothing to push against. — Patton Oswalt

The idea of, 'The journey is the destination' is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a 'More Like This' link on the internet. — Patton Oswalt

What I was trying to say in that bit, without saying it out loud, is that there were things - you're right, everything is very politicized these days, literally down to what kind of coffee you drink - that I used to fight with people about. And by the way, not just people like Republicans and Christians, but liberal friends of mine and very radical left-wing types, and alternative, indie types. — Patton Oswalt

I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious. — Patton Oswalt

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

Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up. — Patton Oswalt

Does anyone act more like an overserious senior citizen with time running out on their chance for immortality than someone in their twenties? — Patton Oswalt

I'm always trying out new stuff onstage. That's where I do all my writing. — Patton Oswalt

... some of us had built whole careers - pointing out how unfair and whimsical and chaotic the entertainment business was, how it rarely rewarded the truly talented. None of us could see how it never rewarded the inert — Patton Oswalt

What you want to worship above youth, I think, is beauty, and beauty is so beyond just appearances after a while. Because you can be with someone who's good-looking; if they open their mouths and they're an idiot, then they cease to be beautiful very quickly. — Patton Oswalt

I have some shorter stories coming out in other books early next year. I might be pitching a re-vamp of Ghost Rider in the spring. We'll see. — Patton Oswalt

But for the most part, for the majority of a stand-up audience, you better have new stuff they've not heard. And if you put an album out, just consider that material gone. At least that's how I see it. — Patton Oswalt

We're rewarding either the reality or the appearance of youth, which is why you have all these people in their fifties trying to act like they're seventeen. You know, it's great to be young. Be young. By all means, be young. But always remember that youth is also kinda dumb, and doesn't know a lot yet. — Patton Oswalt

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

I've had some pretty good arguments with people, but I've never regretted it. I've had people come up where it's all emotion and no fact. That's always sad. — Patton Oswalt

And you'll walk in rolling your eyes and you'll walk out whistling sadly through your teeth because the fuel of the Nerd Mafia is disappointment and exclusion.
- On the Watchmen movie — Patton Oswalt

I like confounding expectations. I can expand what it is I am able to do, and hopefully get to do more weird, interesting projects like this. There's nothing wrong with doing comedies, and I'm not against comedies, either, but I always want to do stuff that keeps me off my guard and gets me out of my comfort zone. And how the audience perceives that ... It's out of my hands. And I don't get that frustrated by it, because I'm on to the next thing at that point. — Patton Oswalt

Meal isn't over when I'm full. Meal's over when I hate myself. — Patton Oswalt

Eight people show up. The emcee is warm, friendly, and about as funny as Shoah. I take the stage to the sound of, my hand to God, one person clapping once and only once, and then I start into my act. — Patton Oswalt

Based on my own experience, when you're going through adolescence you don't know how the world works. You can't set a story in the world you live in because you don't know what a utility bill is, or how to budget your paycheck. — Patton Oswalt

Even if it's other people, like on MySpace pages, we're just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we're in. — Patton Oswalt

Comedy and terror and autobiography and comics and literature-they're all the same thing. To me. — Patton Oswalt

I had to go back and reread the page a few times. As I read it, I kept drifting out of the book, out of the booth, and coasting on the green crest of the song, to the momentary idea that any point on Earth was mine for the visiting, that I'd lucked out living in the reality I was in. And I also got the feeling I was souring and damaging that luck by enjoying the contentment of pulling the shades on the sun, and shutting out my fellow employees and the world, and folding myself up in the construct of a brilliant novel like The Man in the High Castle, that all the reading I'd been doing up to this point hadn't enhanced my life, but rather had replaced and delayed it. — Patton Oswalt

I think the kind of person that gravitates toward New York is a person that's not so much focused on controlling exactly how they appear and how they exit. They're more fascinated with the process. — Patton Oswalt

I'm not familiar with the metric system. — Patton Oswalt

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

Anything's better than Gen X which is what we got. Thanks Douglas Coupland. We sound like a team of mutant vigalantees with frosted hair and chain wallets. Actually that's not completely horrible. — Patton Oswalt

There are times when I have to take, I call it a 'silence bath,' where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while. — Patton Oswalt

You just do as many shows as you can to hone what it is you're working on. — Patton Oswalt

The great ones show you what you can get away with. The shitty ones remind you what never to bother with. — Patton Oswalt

Take what you need from [films] and get out of the dark once in a while. You're going to have more of the dark than you can handle, sooner than you think. The thing about the dark is it can never get enough of you. — Patton Oswalt

I have to drink this much to be as unfunny as you. — Patton Oswalt

If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness. — Patton Oswalt

I have a very tiny house in Burbank. I drive an 8-year-old car. I'm gonna drive it into the ground. I enjoy what I enjoy. — Patton Oswalt

When you put an album out, you can't do any material from the album if people are paying to see you. — Patton Oswalt

I never said that movies were struggling behind TV. I'm just saying that movies have a better creative cache. — Patton Oswalt

This sounds like a brag, but I know how to make good fried rice. I learned in college. There are two secrets - take the rice after you cook it and let it get cold in the fridge. Then cook the egg like you're making a fried egg and just before it's done, dump the rice and veg on it and swirl it around. — Patton Oswalt

You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in. — Patton Oswalt

Movies, to him and the majority of the planet, are an enhancement to a life. The way a glass of wine complements a dinner. I'm the other way around. I'm the kind of person who eats a few bites of food so that my stomach can handle the full bottle of wine I'm about to drink. — Patton Oswalt

We need conservatives that can accept gays, and then we need hippies that can shave and bathe. — Patton Oswalt

The Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation made a bobble head of me and sent it to my management. No card, nothing. — Patton Oswalt

Sprocket fiend is the name I have for the subterranean dimension to my film addiction. The subtle, beneath-the-sound-track sound of the clattering projector in those old rep theaters, especially the New Beverly. The defiant, twenty-four-frames-per-second mechanical heartbeat that says, at least for the duration of whatever movie you're watching, the world's time doesn't apply to you. You're safe in whatever chronal flow the director chooses to take you through. Real time, or a span of months or years, or backward and forward through a life. You are given the space of a film to steal time. And the projector is your only clock. And the need for that subtle, clicking sprocket time makes you - made me - a sprocket fiend. — Patton Oswalt

I'm going to continue to try to strike a balance, because I really, really do love doing stand-up, and I don't see why it should affect the acting. — Patton Oswalt

I think right now is the best time for stand-up, ever. I sincerely do. — Patton Oswalt

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

The truly great actors, like Charlize Theron, are just like, "I'm an actor. For hire. I show up, I do my job." There's no "I'm just waiting for the inspiration." They just do their jobs. They say, "Let's go over the scene a few times and get it." — Patton Oswalt

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

If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home. — Patton Oswalt

Here's what I'm afraid of. I know a lot of comedians, friends of mine, who just got into the 'Doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter. They're just gonna laugh anyway.' — Patton Oswalt

If someone like this were to like me, to like my comedy, and to like the way I conduct myself professionally, it would mean that I suck as a person. — Patton Oswalt

Knowing comedy is knowing human nature. — Patton Oswalt

I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything. — Patton Oswalt

I visited Surrey in the early fall of 1994, and I would return only if I was tasked to kill a demon to save the world. Maybe not even then. Sorry, Surrey. Sorry, world. Yay, hypothetical demon. — Patton Oswalt

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

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage. — Patton Oswalt

It's like our country is being run by a bunch of bad alcoholic dads right now. — Patton Oswalt

I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form. — Patton Oswalt

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

I hate all sidekicks. — Patton Oswalt

Lot of ugly funny dudes end up with some pretty gorgeous women. Women are much deeper than us in choosing a mate - they see in the long term. — Patton Oswalt

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

It wasn't until I went to college and met different people from different areas of life - and then went to San Francisco and met people who really knew who the hell they were - that I kind of caught up in a hurry. — Patton Oswalt

I update my MySpace every day, I update my Facebook fan page, but that's about the extent of it. I don't want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day. I'm on the phone every day. There's like five people I just call and yak with every single day. And that to me is my Internet. You can replace the Internet with five really smart friends. — Patton Oswalt

A lot of nerds aren't aware they're nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, 'I speak Klingon - who am I fooling? You win! I'm just gonna openly like what I like.' Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves. — Patton Oswalt

You have to be ruthless with yourself, in terms of being honest about what is working and what is not. — Patton Oswalt

During the "first Thanksgiving" at Plymouth, Wampanoag Indians - including a Patuxet Indian named Squanto - helped teach Pilgrims how to farm, fish, and hunt and shared the bounty of that first feast. A TRADITION THAT CONTINUES TODAY AND JESUS AND 9/11. — Patton Oswalt

My advice to you is be boring, square, asshole parents ... When I have kids, the most recent CD I will own - Phil Collins, No Jacket Required, and I'll rave about it. 'Do you like rock 'n' roll? 'Cause this is rockin' good stuff, kid.' — Patton Oswalt

The problem is, and I'm just as guilty of this, a lot of people see their follower count increase and mistake that for friendships. It's great to have followers, especially if you want to sell albums, promote shows, or promote your friends, but you still need to get outside and talk to other human beings. — Patton Oswalt

That shit [religion] was going on all over the planet. They would tell them about sky cookies, or sky pie, or sky baklava. And as each of these civilizations grew, they built ships; they'd go visit each other, and the one guy would walk off the boat and go,'Hey, did you hear the good news about the sky baklava?' and the first guy went,'It's CAKE, motherfucker! You're dead! — Patton Oswalt

One of my groupies gave me a film that they made, and it ended up being amazing, so I got it shown at South by Southwest. If I can help get their stuff out there, then great. — Patton Oswalt

All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work. — Patton Oswalt

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

I love the beginning of Magnolia, the thing about the dealer. That scene is genius. Brilliantly acted. — Patton Oswalt

Part of being in your twenties is not knowing an ally when you see one. — Patton Oswalt

I don't want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day. — Patton Oswalt

Cheap liquor is a magic potion that can turn you into a puppet cowboy before it kills you. — Patton Oswalt

Everything we have today that's cool comes from someone wanting more of something they loved in the past. Action figures, videogames, superhero movies, iPods: All are continuations of a love that wanted more. — Patton Oswalt

I suspected, around the time I graduated college, that we're all versions of targets, fired at by indifferent events. If that was the case, then I wanted to be a moving target. — Patton Oswalt

Hobos' (a slang term that combines the words 'hope' and 'bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse') — Patton Oswalt

Imitation leads to exhilaration when you follow it back to its source. — Patton Oswalt

Is it bad when you refer to all alcohol as "Pain Go Bye-Bye Juice"? — Patton Oswalt

I identify [myself] as a stand-up first. Even though lately there's been an explosion of acting on my schedule. — Patton Oswalt

Now we live in this DVD, iTunes, Hulu age, and show creators and networks are realizing that and letting shows develop on those terms rather than 'We gotta just punch it week to week, man.' Now they're like, 'What will happen if someone watches the entire show?' — Patton Oswalt

Stand-up is something I just truly love to do, so I'll always go back to it. I'll never stop doing it, that's for sure. — Patton Oswalt

I don't care how high my shrink increases my Lexapro dosage - I WANT TO BE A ROBOT THAT HELPS WOLVES HAVE SEX. Otherwise my parents threw away the money they spent on my college education. — Patton Oswalt

Every zombie story is fundamentally about a breakdown of order, with the infrastructure intact. That infrastructure might be on fire, yes. — Patton Oswalt

Its gaze unlocked a room in my nightmares which should have remained closed. — Patton Oswalt

I mean, the death in the late eighties and early nineties really shook out a lot of hacks. The pond just sort of dried up for a lot of really bad comedians. — Patton Oswalt

Somebody is going to find a way digitally that is just as innovative. In the end, the tools can change, but there is always someone who can think of something cool to do. — Patton Oswalt

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

People will find transformation and transcendence in a McDonald's hash brown if it's all they've got. — Patton Oswalt

Knock on wood, my groupies tend to be very artistic, creative people - sometimes way more creative than I am. — Patton Oswalt