Marc Maron Quotes

I find that if I don't do interviews, I get a little squirrely. I think that when you engage with someone else, or when you engage in something you're passionate about, you're sort of out of your own head.

It's not all about love. That's half of it... The other half is about that moment you have with yourself when you're looking in the mirror, and you just go, 'Oh man. I'm going to compromise my dreams, get fat, sick, old and die someday. I kind of want to have someone around for that.'

That's an animal fable about humility. If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you're fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you're not immortal and you've got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off and fly away.

When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.

I've become less angry and a little more humble by age and by experience and by going through the ups and downs of life.

My dad is actually a manic depressive, which is very exciting half the time.

There are a lot of things that I'm allowing myself to be, but it's a conscious effort to experience contentment for me. My brain doesn't do that naturally. I'm very overwhelmed all of the time.

The bile makes it better. I am an information wasting machine - 100s of words a day.

Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.

I'm not a narcissist, but I definitely have gotten enough explosive narcissistic shrapnel from my father. I'm sort of wired that way, but I don't feel that I'm pathological, so all I can pull from is my own existence and my knowledge.

I don't care what anybody says, I think that George Bush is absolutely the right president to oversea the end of the world.

Comedy is obviously a matter of personal taste and the world always needs a clown and some people have no taste at all and any clown will do.

I'm proud to be part of a generation where reading is a 'look.'

I don't seek controversy. I don't seek to antagonize. Sometimes it happens, but I'm not there to argue politics.

A lot of people think that Jesus is coming back. That's fine, it's your right. But you know, I live in New York, and I think he's running a little late. I'm asking myself, 'Alright, what happens if Jesus comes back tomorrow? What - does he make rounds to churches?' 'OK, everyone who's been good, buses leave in 10 minutes. I'll meet you in front of the post office. I gotta go. Oh, don't tell the Jews I'm back.'

I'm just very sort of compulsive and lack the ability to keep things in perspective. If I'm not writing or playing guitar or on the microphone or out on the road, I'm cleaning pots and pans or freaking out about some plumbing issue or tweeting.

Most of my comedy writing happens through improvisation on stage; doing it in the moment. Going up with an idea and fleshing it out over time on stage and in front of people until it becomes a full bit.

Once I learned how to talk, personally, by myself to any number of people, which means do radio without talking to anyone in particular on the air - I just found that my brain became very free to engage in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style of doing what I do.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

Conversation is a beautiful thing. When I was a younger guy, just wandering around talking to people was what kept me connected to the world.

I'm not a racist. It's really case by case; it's not ethnicity specific. It's just the way I react to things that are different. I think that's normal. Everyone's nervous when they're confronted with things that they don't understand or are different. That's a normal human reaction. It doesn't become racist 'til you say things like, 'Oh, there's a lot of them.'

I immediately went out and bought a book on anger management. And now I have that book, and I don't know if I'll get to the book. But I'm certainly excited about the day where I can't find the book, and I get to say, 'Where the hell is my anger management book?!'

It's great to have people come out. I do worry, though. They know me very intimately, in a way, if they listen to my show; they know a lot about me.

You know when you make popcorn there are always those fluffy white kernels that are fun and good to eat but there are also always those burnt, black kernels that don’t pop. You know why they don’t pop? Because they have integrity.

In a lot of ways, I'm seeking some sort of peace of mind for myself. I'm a fairly emotionally petty, resentful guy who has an inflated sense of himself, and I needed to take that down a notch.

The worst thing about living in this world, in general, is that things get overwhelming, and things cause a tremendous amount of despair and anxiety.

There's a fine line between cultural criticism and bitterness.

We live in an age where people are like, "I'd love to catch up. Maybe text me later? But don't call because I don't really listen to my messages. But if you text me..." We've displaced interaction into sound bites and untethered phrases and sentences that come up on the phone as Twitter feed.

I'm a guy that after having experience in radio and stuff, if I can trust the people I'm working with, I get a real thrill with working with other people who are good at what they do.

You hope to see an arc of growth in your ability to become a character on television.

We live in a culture where people are self-centered and careerist and everybody seems to think they have too much on their plate or they just don't have time for other people's pain.

Whether people know the evolution of the conversation or not, I don't know, but thematically, as a comedian, I stay in the same ballpark - around my issues and my philosophy of life.

Hopefully standup will become special again.

Any comic can get on the radio show and be funny. You can get that on any morning radio show or afternoon radio show. There are plenty of people who do that. It's not a difficult format, to sit around with two or three comics and be funny.

It seems people are more willing to let other people control their minds now and recreational drug use doesn't seem to have that same renegade sense of adventure that it once did.

Because we're comics and we pass each other on campus, we know of each other, and a lot of the time there's a mutual respect there.

What comics sacrifice and what lives they live - I know that most of their lives, their adult lives, they're sitting around or walking around with notebooks, writing things down. Usually they're fairly sensitive. Usually they're very bright. And that makes them poets.

Most of the comics that I talk to I've never talked to for more than ten minutes ever. So 95 percent of the time you're really hearing the first conversation between me and that guy on the podcast.

I think seeing Pryor's first movie, Live In Concert, when I was in high school changed my life. Pryor really put the heart in darkness for me.

It amazes me that we are all on Twitter and Facebook. By "we" I mean adults. We're adults, right? But emotionally we're a culture of seven-year-olds. Have you ever had that moment when are you updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: "Would someone please acknowledge me?

What appealed to me was the intimacy of the medium, the fact that I was doing it from my home, and the fact that I wanted to talk. I was not there to plug things. I don't do a hell of a lot of research. I go on a sort of kindred-spirit bonding that preexists the interview, and just see what unfolds.

Your insecurity and neediness is what makes you a big neurotic ball of comedy genius.

On some level any appearance on Television can be seen as a product endorsement.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you're one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?

I knew most of my radio listeners were lefty political people, and I decided definitively not to be that guy - not to address politics.

How complicated can ice cream flavors be? How much can you put in there? I mean, when the flavor's something like banana ice cream with caramel, fudge chunks, cheddar goldfish and pennies - you've got to draw a line there.

I'm not a moron, but science fiction to me requires a suspension of disbelief and honest curiosity or fascination in that kind of bullshit. I've just never been able to make that jump, really. I like things to be more organic.

We’re built to deal with death, disease, failure, struggle, heartbreak, problems. It’s what separates us from the animals and why we envy and love animals so much. We’re aware of it all and have to process it. The way we each handle being human is where all the good stories, jokes, art, wisdom, revelations, and bullshit come from.