Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My education began in theater school, and it continues to this day. I just continued learning to be a better performer.
I keep having these bros come up to me and say, "I used to watch you when I was a fetus," and I just want to kill them.
If you like comedy, go home and curl up with Leviticus. The writers of The Onion are handed Leviticus on their first day.
I like to play women who are not strong at all, because, there's certainly plenty of myself that is no kind of a warrior.
I would like Americans to make things with their hands. Thomas Jefferson and I feel that makes for a much stronger nation.
When I got my job on Parks, it was so dreamy, kind of unfathomable. I didn't think a job that excellent could exist for me.
I come from the theater, where I got into acting because I love transforming. I love nothing more than to be unrecognizable.
No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do.
I never went too long without a job. The problem was a lot of the early jobs are almost more demoralizing than unemployment.
When I first met with agents, they said, "Okay, you're going to play plumbers and mechanics and bus drivers and farmers. Go."
When I got my job on 'Parks,' it was so dreamy, kind of unfathomable. I didn't think a job that excellent could exist for me.
I always drastically changed my look for each role. It's gotten a little tedious in real life, also, because there's no hiding.
I am always so happy to be at 'SNL.' I still feel like a kid when I'm there, like I can't believe I'm watching them make the show.
A lot of people find themselves in the entertainment business - or perhaps society steers them toward it - because they're beautiful.
Before people figured out I was funny, I got cast quite a bit as either a rapist or serial killer or the guy who catches those people.
I've been working steadily as an actor since around 1998. I wasn't well known in the public, but I was a dependable working journeyman.
I always had a lot of confidence in my work and the unique flavor I like to bring to my characters, but you know I'm not a huge dreamer.
I've had to learn and discipline myself that I'm much happier and much less depressed if I give myself a project. It's just that simple.
I have a wonderfully hedonistic appetite, and if I wasn't really strict with myself, I'd weigh 300 pounds. I'm not good with moderation.
I really thought that I'd be doing Shakespeare, honest to God. I did not foresee the whole action television thing. That was God's joke.
I think that laziness in many ways is the human condition, and that's what has led us to this place where, as we've developed technology.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don't teach a man to fish and you feed yourself. He's a grown man, fishing's not that hard.
I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist.
We realized that the world of popular culture had been creating the perfect candidate for many years: the female champion of the universe.
When I got to Los Angeles, I started building cabins in peoples’ yards, building post-and-beam structures and cutting the joinery for those.
When I got to Los Angeles, I started building cabins in peoples' yards, building post-and-beam structures and cutting the joinery for those.
Follow your gut, make a choice, and throw yourself into it. If you make a mistake, then you have merely afforded yourself a valuable lesson.
People are afraid that they're going to upset somebody on top, and so there's a real sense of, I've got to be quiet, I don't want to be fired.
If I put down my tweeter machine for a minute, I actually can communicate with people. As an aside, astonishingly, I just started doing Twitter.
I grew up among farmers in Illinois and so you always have to have the tools you might need in the eventuality of a flat tire or a broken window.
I'm obsessed with the Victorian era and the British Royal Navy... I'd love to play a troubled sailor or captain or a boatman on a three masted ship.
My wife happens to be probably the greatest working woman in comedy. I can't think of anyone who even approaches her achievements and her abilities.
And what we've lost sight of is that performing manual labor with your hands is one of the most incredibly satisfying and positive things you can do.
I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him, I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.
If I had to pick one form of acting, it would be live theater. That's where I started; that's where I became a man, I think I'm still finishing up that job.
My family has schoolteachers and librarians, and I think people who teach are probably some of our greatest American heroes. Certainly, underpaid and unsung.
There have been a few occurrences where people in restaurants have sent me a rasher of bacon, which I am not going to turn my nose up at. I never let them down.
I also grew up building theatrical scenery. I spent many years building scenery as a large part of my income and that allowed me to really develop my shop skills.
I was drinking a lot of bourbon. I was miserable. I was starting to get work, but it wasn't remotely satisfying. It was garbage compared to the theater I was doing.
I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.
Meat is a big deal in my life. I do love breakfast food, but I don't think that's extraordinary. I'm a normal American. We love eggs and meat and potatoes and gravy.
I'm enjoying the opportunity that Parks And Recreation affords me to exploit my own soapbox agenda, which is to try to encourage people to make things with their hands.
I'm enjoying the opportunity that 'Parks And Recreation' affords me to exploit my own soapbox agenda, which is to try to encourage people to make things with their hands.
People keep referring to me as a standup, and that just doesn't sit well with me because a lot of my friends are standups and they're brilliant at writing jokes, and I'm not.
I'm opposed to a lot of the time that we as a civilization have come to spend looking at screens. For my money, life is much delicious damn near everyplace but inside that screen.
Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis.
For years I drove a big Ford F250 pickup. That was my ride because two-thirds of my work was wood work, and I'm always driving up to Northern California, where I harvest salvaged trees.
Let's just say I can never be cast again after Ron Swanson. Then I have a life of theater and woodworking and my wife to look forward to, and that doesn't make me anything but very happy.
My uncles, who are farmers in Minooka, Illinois - I grew up with them and their pickup trucks and mustaches, and to me that was masculinity: big hairy sweaty guys who could pick up a bus.
If you always have something in your life that you're trying to improve upon, then every day you have a reason to get out of bed, and you have a reason to achieve something and feel good.