Originality is really important.

I love stories about teachers. For some reason I can't get enough of those kind of stories. If I turn a movie on about a teacher, I love it. I love that idea of an adult influence on kids.

I don't feel any pressure to be funny at all. I'm funny because I want to be funny. I could sit here and be serious for an hour and you would go away and make me much funnier than I am.

Risk being seen in all of your glory.

I try to stay in decent shape always. I pride myself on staying at least a month away from really good shape.

It's always fun to do something that you know ultimately is not about the money, and it's certainly not for the fame - because it's a pain in the ass. But it's really the person in the theater seat you think about when you sit in a room and write.

i'm a perfectionist, so i'm never satisfied with myself. i've always been psychotic about that kind of stuff--in a good way. i'm very disciplined. like the food and the whole thing, i'm always looking to "how can i eventually just turn into a ball of light and fly off the planet?". until that happens and God basically pull the blinds back, i will not be satisfied... if i found out that if i ate pine nuts for the next month i could see God, i'd be eating pine nuts.