Michael Ian Black Quotes

I think writing for anybody helps you order your life. It helps you arrange your emotions and your thoughts and it helps to provide perspective.

I don't watch that much comedy. I think it's professional jealousy. That and a lack of support for my community.

Shuffling really isn't something you should be doing on your deathbed.

So my reaction to hearing this corny-ass, horrible song ["With Arms Wide Open" by Creed] is violent, uncontrollable, sustained weeping.

Whatever expectations I had for myself, none of them have come to pass. I grew up thinking I was going to be an actor, which I am. But I thought I'd be a very serious sort of Shakespearean guy going from town to town having sex with various Juliets all over the country.

As a game-show host, what I'm thinking and what I'm experiencing doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't matter. So there's a flattened reality to it. It's fun to do. But it's certainly not myself in totality - or even maybe a little bit.

By the end of the time I'm writing a book, I'm tearing my hair out and I want to go do stand-up. And then I want to do something else. I don't know why it is true with me that I can't just be satisfied doing the one thing, but I'm constantly flitting from one thing to another.

I probably should be thinking of better ideas on how to promote myself, but I don't really spend a lot of time doing it. I really don't know how to promote effectively.

I never really understood what was expected of me as a man, or how I was supposed to interact with women, but worse, with other guys. I did not relate to them.

You have to lead, in the case of a game show, a contestant through the architecture of the show. So there's a lot of rules there, literal and implied, that you have to navigate.

Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic, but don't give it more attention than it deserves.

The illustrators work so much harder on the books than the writers do. I mean, that's so much work doing what they do, and it's terrible for them.

My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob. And proud of it.

If I revise a children's book, if I'm spending three hours on the first draft, I'm probably spending 30 minutes revising it. I mean, come on! But to redo a painting? That's hard work.

I'm very introverted, so it requires a huge effort for me to put on a smile and extend a hand and accept compliments. I would much rather be insulted than complimented any day.

I used to need the character but as I've gotten older I need it less and less - I prefer to play some version of myself. To approach any acting job as me just being me.

I thought I'd be living a much more bohemian life and be very poor. I never thought I'd do comedy or be married living in the suburbs. Every time I try to plan my life out it just doesn't come to pass, and I think that's a great experience.

My goal is to work. That's the goal of most actors or performers: to work and keep working, and do the best you can, and keep growing and changing, trying to improve your craft.

All my friends were girls. Then my mom's strident feminism for years where men were thought of as the enemy, I just didn't know what the right way to be a man was.

Twitter is about creating whatever persona you want to create and either sticking with it or changing it or evolving it or contradicting it, and I've done all that stuff.

The things I care about are the most pedestrian things in the world. I care about good ice cream and being a good dad and a decent husband.

I loved Dungeons & Dragons. Actually, not so much the actual playing as the creation of characters and the opportunity to roll twenty-sided dice. I loved those pouches of dice Dungeon Masters would trundle around, loved choosing what I was going to be: warrior, wizard, dwarf, thief.