Rainn Quotes & Sayings

I was doing great plays. It wasn't changing the world. I was getting good agents and doing film and TV and I wasn't happier. I was like "Wow, there is an unease inside of me." And that led me back on my kind of more spiritual path to the Baha'i faith in a new and fresher way and I came to also understand at that point that there was no difference between being devout and being an artist. There is no difference between creativity and spirituality and philosophy and that is what Soul Pancake, the book, it's about human expression and it's about seeking to transcend. — Rainn Wilson

What's interesting is the show allows for the awkward pauses to be captured, which makes it stylistically unique, especially for American audiences. — Rainn Wilson

I came to realize I did believe in God. I couldn't conceive of a universe without someone overseeing it in a compassionate way. — Rainn Wilson

I was a total dork in high school. — Rainn Wilson

I use two million Twitter followers as a tool. The reason I have Twitter is so people can get to know me as a different person other than Dwight. I just realized all of the sudden like everything thinks I'm Dwight. They think that I'm Dwight from the office and that I'm this kind of annoying, difficult, nerdy, creepy guy and they don't know Rainn Wilson - although I'm a little bit nerdy, annoying and creepy. I'm not as much as Dwight Schrute. — Rainn Wilson

'SoulPancake' is a website that I founded with a couple of friends, and it is for exploring life's big questions. — Rainn Wilson

Creativity is absolutely for everyone. I firmly believe this. I think if you're the driest accountant with the plastic pocket pen protector it's in how you interact with the world. There is artistry in everything that we do and there is expression in everything that we do. — Rainn Wilson

My dad wanted to name me after Rainier Maria Rilke, the poet. — Rainn Wilson

Well, mostly I just want to be an actor. I love being an actor, and I don't want to be a spokesman for anything, I don't want to do anything crazy or fancy like that. — Rainn Wilson

I found it very easy to transform into creeps and weirdos and losers and goof-balls, and I'm happy to play eccentric kinds of characters, and I have a great affinity for the outsider, but I definitely am about expanding my range as well. — Rainn Wilson

See, the thing is, I had a little misunderstanding with Trent Gibson in Pre-Calculus earlier. I dropped my textbook on his face - accidentally, while we were discussing some ... equations - and he thought I was trying to brain him. So of course, he narked to Shoemaker, and apparently accidents are grounds for disciplinary action these days. — Isobel Irons

To put it kindly, I am a very talkative, social person. To put it less kindly, I'm a flibbertigibbet, which is what my frenemy Rainn Wilson calls me. — Mindy Kaling

I've actually rented Bjork's swan dress. I know that's kind of recycling, but I saw An Inconvenient Truth. — Rainn Wilson

You have total control of it, and when you're an actor, you're subject to production design and costumes and directors and studio choices and producer choices, but when you're writing it, you're creating your own little world in your head, peopled with your little characters. No one is in there monkeying with it, at least not at first - though they will. With this and the other projects I'm working on, it'll have to be given away, and it'll have to be someone else's property. — Rainn Wilson

Not everything is a lesson. Sometimes you just fail. — Rainn Wilson

We've seen that there are a lot of people out there - teenagers in Topeka, housewives in Long Island, millionaire Internet start-up moguls - that all want to connect with each other about what it is to be human. — Rainn Wilson

I was this weird misfit guy from suburban Seattle, I never really fit in, and then I became a drama geek, among all the other different kinds of geek that I was growing up, and I found I was pretty good at it. — Rainn Wilson

One thing I really want to do is - I spent ten years in New York doing theater before I moved to L.A. to do TV and film. I'd really like to go to back New York and do some theater. — Rainn Wilson

I really wanted to do something positive on the Internet. I wanted to try to get young people talking about, thinking about, life's big questions-make it cool and OK to wonder about the heart, the soul and free will and God and death and big topics like that, big human topics. — Rainn Wilson

Ralph Waldo Emerson would definitely be my homeboy. — Rainn Wilson

The making of art is no different than prayer. — Rainn Wilson

Fortunately for me, I came out of ray misadventures with drugs and alcohol with my life, health, and soul pretty much intact. I know many who didn't. It's not harmless. I've lost many friends to that way of life. Some have died. Some have simply fried their hard drives for the rest of time or live in a perpetual chemical fog. I'm betting not one of them would say, It was worth it. — Rainn Wilson

Is Dwight really like that in real life?" to which I respond: "Oh, no, Rainn isn't like Dwight. Dwight is an angel next to Rainn. Rainn is a demon. — Mindy Kaling

I think meditation helps greatly with creativity. If it's a pure expression of yourself no matter what it is or what medium, it's going to shine. It's going to resonate. — Rainn Wilson

My brain is so anxiety-prone, like a pinball machine. If I don't get up in the morning and focus my thinking, my breathing, and my being for about 12 minutes, I'm just a screwball all day long. — Rainn Wilson

What other people think of you is none of your business; what you think of other people is ALL of your business. — Rainn Wilson

The greatest thing ever in the history of the world and of all of human endeavor from time immemorial is stories. — Rainn Wilson

I joined an acting class in my junior year in high school. I'd always wanted to try it. — Rainn Wilson

I'm about as big a star as the Baha'i faith has got, which is pretty pathetic. — Rainn Wilson

Pretty much anybody who's ever worked can relate to our show. — Rainn Wilson

I know what I look like - a weird, sad clown puppet. I'm fine with that. — Rainn Wilson

My mom was an actress in the local Seattle theater doing experimental plays. — Rainn Wilson

Life is suffering. Life is not resistance to suffering. The point of life is to suffer. This is why we're here: We're here to suffer. I believe in a higher power that compassionately allows suffering for us as a race, to grow and mature. — Rainn Wilson

I think that charity is a tricky thing, because a lot of times, people equate charity with handouts. I don't believe in handouts. — Rainn Wilson

Between giant spiders and meeting Edmund Ellis did I have a chance, Ms Rainn? — S.A. Tawks

I grew up watching comedy. It was among all the geeky things that I did. — Rainn Wilson

My body has been making women laugh for the last 20 years and I'm happy to continue to oblige. — Rainn Wilson

You meet people in Hollywood that are famous, and you're not sure what they got famous for. — Rainn Wilson

Some of the most morally conscious, kindest, most compassionate people are in the entertainment industry, people who want to affect the world and make it a better place through telling human, heartfelt stories. — Rainn Wilson

The Baha'i celebrity, or the Belebrity, is a character actor with a big head playing an annoying creep on a TV show. — Rainn Wilson

The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace. — Rainn Wilson

I love being an actor, and I don't want to be a spokesman for anything, I don't want to do anything crazy or fancy like that. I just love playing characters and getting paid for it, and that's what I want to do till the day I die. — Rainn Wilson

I want to keel over on stage playing King Lear at age 99 or something like that. — Rainn Wilson

Be not the slave of your moods, but their master. But if you are so angry, so depressed and so sore that your spirit cannot find deliverance and peace even in prayer, then quickly go and give some pleasure to someone lowly or sorrowful, or to a guilty or innocent sufferer! Sacrifice yourself, your talent, your time, your rest to another, to one who has to bear a heavier load than you - and your unhappy mood will dissolve into a blessed, contented submission to God. — Rainn Wilson

A lot of actors are just like la la la - they're never really connected and then they're in the scene and then boom. They're looking you in the eyes and they're just really focused. — Rainn Wilson

I think God has a tremendous sense of humor. — Rainn Wilson

Teachers can make such a profound impact on our lives and should be honored as heroes, I believe. They're working for so little money, under such difficult circumstances, usually for the love of the service to the children. Many of us owe who we are to certain teachers who appeared at just the right time, in the right place, and had just the right words to say to propel us on our journey. (ACTIVITY ALERT: Take this opportunity, partway through this ridiculous book, to reach out to a teacher who made an impact on you and THANK THEM. You'll be so glad you did. And so will they!) — Rainn Wilson

These days, the teenage years are considered a time for socializing with a focus on dating and popularity. When relieved of the pressures of dating too young, I believe a young person is better able to focus on who they really are and find themselves in that crucial time when your personality is beginning to germinate. It's all that time reading, dreaming, and goofing off with fellow oddballs where our best selves get to evolve as teenagers. — Rainn Wilson

The truth, Ms Rainn, is that advice and inspirational quotes and sayings may give you a kick start, but it's up to you to keep that motivation alive. — S.A. Tawks

So much about religion has to do with rigid, sacrosanct preciousness. I don't live my life that way, and I don't feel that's what Baha'u'llah teaches. — Rainn Wilson

Ms Rainn, you might say, is a writing prodigy and I'm her mentor. — S.A. Tawks

I think definitely people know me from playing creeps and weirdos, and I'm definitely looking to expand my range. — Rainn Wilson

I like being a Baha'i who has an out-there sense of humor. God gives us talents and faculties, and making people laugh is one of mine. — Rainn Wilson

I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great part of what it is to be human. — Rainn Wilson

I think a lot of times when people have "creative blocks" and I know my share of friends do as well if they're at just some stuck point. They're not sure what to do with their lives or their writing or their photography or their filmmaking or whatever it is that they're doing. I think the best advice is you have to change your life up completely; to go on a trip, to go spend a year being of service. Be willing to take some major drastic action to get you out of your comfort zone and go inside, not outside. — Rainn Wilson

Isn't it true that a well-read book seems more alive to you, Ms Rainn? — S.A. Tawks

I have an eight-year-old child, and I literally can't wrap my mind around the kind of grief that must be felt when you lose a child. — Rainn Wilson

Absolutely father knows best, always do what your fathers say, and if you can't find one then just ask me, I am a father and I know best. — Rainn Wilson

I'm lucky to have a wife and a child that keep me grounded. — Rainn Wilson

Everyone is an artist. Everyone is creative in their own way and that that creativity is a great thing. It's a human thing and it needs to be nurtured and it can help us go down life's path and help us to become deeper, richer, more satisfied human beings. — Rainn Wilson

In every decade rock and roll starts to get very serious and navel gazing and kind of self serious and every once and a while it kind of needs a kick in the pants. — Rainn Wilson

The founder of the Mona Foundation actually knew my dad for years, and the more I learned about it, the more I realized I really found the perfect charity. It sponsors schools and educational initiatives all over the planet. — Rainn Wilson

Absolutely. I am a father, and I know best. If there's any question, just ask me. — Rainn Wilson

I don't want to sound pretentious, but I love art, I like to go to museums, and I like to read books. — Rainn Wilson

Ms Rainn, when was the last time you visited a library for the books and not the free Internet it offers? — S.A. Tawks

I really like the stuff that is very absurd and very real at the same time. I think Anton Chekhov is the greatest comedy writer of all time. I think he would make a great addition to The Office staff. If you look through Chekhov plays there is a lot of awkward pauses in there. His mixture of pathos, absurdity, truthfulness and whimsy is just mixed together perfectly. — Rainn Wilson

My Favorite Kid President Quotes "Create something that will make the world more awesome." "Treat everybody like it's their birthday." "If you can't think of anything nice to say, you're not thinking hard enough." "Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody." "Give the world a reason to dance!" "Us humans are capable of war and sadness and other terrible stuff. But also CUPCAKES!" "Love changes everything so fill the world with it!" "Grown-ups who dream are the best kinds of grown-ups." "Don't be IN a party. BE a party." And my personal favorite, "Mail someone a corn dog. — Rainn Wilson

If it's a pure expression of yourself no matter what it is or what medium, it's going to shine. It's going to resonate. You could look inside of yourself and you could have a canvas and you could paint a dot in it, but if that is where your creative purpose is taking you then it needs to be that dot. — Rainn Wilson

We get inundated with so many messages about belief, about what is true and what is not, from both our families and our culture, and it's crucial that every single one of us come to our own well-excavated understanding. — Rainn Wilson

The bonds we create in the household are the most important and lasting. Savor them; they're sacred. — Rainn Wilson

Apparently 'The Office' plays in Brazil. Who would've thought that Brazilians would identify with a bunch of pasty white Scrantonians in a paper company? But the Brazilians I've met have really loved the show. — Rainn Wilson

And I do believe that the way to change a society, to uplift people - not just their spirit, but to uplift their society and economic base - is through education. — Rainn Wilson

I was raised to think about philosophy and religious thought and the soul and the spirit of humankind in a different way, also really socially progressive teachings of the Baha'i faith, the equality of men and women, the elimination of racial prejudice, the equality of science and religion, so it was a big cauldron of big ideas in my household. And we were weird and unhappy family, but nonetheless that was a really positive thing that came out of it. — Rainn Wilson

I would love to see some comedies about loser women. — Rainn Wilson

I think Dwight loves being number two. I don't think he has any desire to be number one. He wants to be number two no matter where he goes. It's like Avis. 'We try harder.' That's Dwight. — Rainn Wilson

And I want to find a way to be of service to humanity. I think that's crucial. So want to be an artist and a servant, a humanitarian, and I want to play goofy weirdoes. — Rainn Wilson

[Internet] technology, like anything else that mankind creates is a tool and that tool can be used for good or for evil, like a light saber. Technology is supposed to bring people together, streamline things and make life easier and in a lot of ways it does that. However, technology can also disconnect you from other people and break down the social network, the real social network of family and friends and interpersonal communication, and isolate people, make them feel alone, make them feel small. So it's a tool that needs to be used correctly. — Rainn Wilson

I can relate to someone whose life is falling apart, and they are doing the best to get by, using humor to survive, backstrom really wears his heart on his sleeve and his life is unraveling ... I would much rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who has all the answers ... it's human, it's frail, it's interesting. — Rainn Wilson

I play Dwight. That is just much me being of service and worshiping as if I'm on my knees in some temple somewhere or bowing my head in prayer to God in some way. It's really all just the same thing. — Rainn Wilson

Scotland is the Canada of England! — Rainn Wilson

I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing. — Rainn Wilson

I used to play a lot of chess and competitive chess and study chess and as you get to the grandmasters and learn their styles when you start copying their games like the way they express themselves through ... The way Kasparov or Bobby Fischer expresses themselves through a game of chess is it's astonishing. You can show a chess master one of their games and they'll say "Yeah, that is done by that player." — Rainn Wilson

I was terrified, lost. Like most moments of intense personal tragedy, it was both heartbreaking and a little bit ridiculous. — Rainn Wilson

My whole thing is I just always wanted to be a working actor and I just wanted to stop waiting tables. — Rainn Wilson

If you cloned JFK and Abraham Lincoln and made them president it wouldn't matter. Our system is just too corrupt and too broken. I think that science is corrupt and broken. I think health and nutrition. I think the economic systems, the international relations, the environment, everything, the engines of everything are broken. — Rainn Wilson

There are other ways than conventional doors to get around my house, Ms Rainn. — S.A. Tawks

All writers read, Ms Rainn. With dwindling amounts of books circulating imagination, the less writers of all mediums will be able to exercise their own imaginations. — S.A. Tawks

I've always been terrible on regular sitcoms with lots of jokes. I don't know how to tell jokes. — Rainn Wilson

I think that doing comedy and playing Dwight is a service. Not to get grandiose about it, but I have a talent for playing oddball characters and I can make people laugh and that can help bring families together and people will really enjoy it and it puts a smile on their face and I think that is a really great thing. — Rainn Wilson

Singing and dancing is not just for the cast of 'Glee'. We can wake up doing both and have it be a natural expression of who we are. — Rainn Wilson

A guy may wear a suit and have a high-paying job and appear very mature, but essentially, he's a 14-year-old boy. — Rainn Wilson

I think creative blocks come from people's life journeys. If you don't know who you are or what you're about or what you believe in it's really pretty impossible to be creative. — Rainn Wilson

I think it needs to be with a heart-based wisdom and this heart-based wisdom needs to go hand in hand with science and with social activism and love for our planet and love for our whole human family that spans the whole globe and this may sound very high and mighty or airy-fairy, but it's going to have to go to that or else we're just all going to destroy each other. — Rainn Wilson

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof. — Rainn Wilson

The great challenge working on this show for me is wearing polyester all day long and having the worst haircut known to man at the top of my head and sitting under fluorescent lights. That is America, people. Polyester, bad haircuts, under fluorescent lights. — Rainn Wilson

I had bohemian parents in Seattle in the last '60s living in a houseboat. My dad wrote science fiction novels and painted big murals and oil paintings. — Rainn Wilson

There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go. — Rainn Wilson

Some of the biggest movie stars in the world are essentially characters. — Rainn Wilson

Dwight is a sad clown. You've seen those paintings of sad clown. — Rainn Wilson

Well, Dwight was born to be No. 2 and I don't think he would know what to do as a leader. But he loves following. He would have made a great fascist. — Rainn Wilson