To succeed in comedy you ultimately have to put in the hours and get lucky - The amount of people who are able to break through is so small a fraction of the amount of people trying.

I think our culture views success as visibility, being seen as being successful. Whereas I've learned that success is rooted in helping and connecting to other people, and knowing where you can contribute. I've kind of spent my thirties doing that, because in my twenties I was seeking any kind of success.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

In my twenties, I thought it was getting a sitcom. Then I got a sitcom pilot in my early thirties, and realized I didn't want it. It was a rude awakening. When it wasn't picked up, I was crushed, but then in retrospect I've made two films and produced three one-man shows since then. It's the luckiest thing that happened in my life.

I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy.

Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.

Every comedian comes to a fork in the road where they have to decide if they're going to make jokes about other people or make jokes about themselves. I chose myself.