Nick Offerman Quotes

I always call performing live "giving the people the medicine," because when you're engaged in it, you can feel the sort of soul magic being exchanged between the performer and the audience.

The first thing I do, after I talk with the director and we agree that I'm going to do the role... My jumping off point is I get a picture of what my 'look' will be. My wardrobe style, my facial hair, glasses and all that kind of stuff.

I never went too long without a job. The problem was a lot of the early jobs are almost more demoralizing than unemployment.

If I had more time, I'd watch more woodworking or home-improvement shows, but, not enough hours in the day.

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.

No one will ever ask me to sing because it's beautiful. My secret is hiding my musicianship behind humor.

I think it's fascinating that I receive attention for what people perceive to be a level of manliness or machismo, when amongst my family of farmers and paramedics and regular Americans, I'm kind of the sissy in my family.

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.

I have a ridiculously beautiful wife who's super sexy, and as long as she's happy with me, I don't need to look in the mirror and think, "How do I stack up next to Bradley Cooper? Would Cooper rock this shirt?" Doesn't matter. He does not have your wife. You do.

I've split my life between a few different disciplines.

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 properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza. I love a slice when I'm in NYC, but it's like eating a Slim Jim compared with a filet mignon. One slice of Gino's East stuffed sausage pizza is a bigger meal than an entire New York pie.

I think that purity creates not only a higher level of artistic vision but a purer work ethic.

If you're an original thinker, you are going get told 'no' a lot, and you have to be able to hear 'no' many times from the bankers and trust that at some point, someone is going to recognize that you are an artist and not a can of soda.

I made an executive decision in college when I learned how behind I was in the world of books, films, and music because of my rural upbringing. I really reduced the amount of time that sports took up in my life.I still have some Faulkner to get through.

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 learned in my early years in the theater that I would never become the guy on top. I'll never create a show; I don't have a brain expansive enough to see the whole picture, in a way that would behoove anyone.

My education began in theater school, and it continues to this day. I just continued learning to be a better performer.

The quest for the next key art awards begins with tomorrow's hangover

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.

Being a man of the theater and a hedonist, I find the idea of building coffins very romantic.

I awaken. I consume oxygen, then bacon, eggs and black coffee, then my wife, then bacon.

When I was a kid, I lived in this small town way out in the country. We had three TV channels and one radio station. I couldn't even get my hands on good comic books. My aunt, who is a librarian, gave me Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie," and Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia." They were such incredible treasures to have in my somewhat mundane country life.

You know, it's hard to beat bacon at anytime of day. But I also am a big fan of corned beef hash.

Actually, I'm not super-kickass at a lot of things.

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 you don't look at yourself and evaluate it, you instead see how the world's reacting to it.

Turn off your computer and go out of doors. Dig a large enough hole to transplant a mature apple tree. Nurture the tree, feed it, coddle it so that its fruit will be ample, bright and firm. Practice open-hand strikes against the rough bark of the trunk until it's time to harvest. Choose the champion of your apple crop, pluck it from the tree, and beat yourself about the face and tits with it until your mettle will suffice.

It's hard to swallow when people say, "Oh my God, you're a master of something." I say, "No, I'm actually a student of that. I could turn you on to websites for 25 masters, and you'll quickly see that I am their disciple."

When I arrive in Los Angeles in the entertainment community, and I use implements like a shovel and a hammer, our society has distanced itself so far from working with its hands that those incredibly pedestrian skills are perceived as somehow being extraordinary.

One of the most poignant pieces of recent science fiction for me was the portrayal of the adults in the Pixar film WALL-E. I feel like we're on the cusp of becoming fat babies in floating chairs being fed everything in shake form, and I feel like I am as prone to laziness as anybody.

I've never seen a theater community to rival that of Chicago. Neither New York nor L.A. has the raw talent or integrity that Chicago theater has, and I think it's because Chicago doesn't have Broadway or the film and TV business to distract it.

I have a very healthy growth of both head and facial hair. People always want to attribute further superhuman powers to me. It's funny the way the audience really seems to want me, Nick the actor, to exhibit the same machismo as Ron Swanson.

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.

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 have a corn creamer that I love. It extracts pulp and juice from kernels, and I simmer that down into a creamed corn that has an almost mashed potato-like consistency. I add butter and hit it with chopped fresh chives at the end for an accent of color.

A lot of people find themselves in the entertainment business - or perhaps society steers them toward it - because they're beautiful.

Just stand up for your principals and be loyal to your friends and family.

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.

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.

If properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza.

I don't get nominated, and I have to say, I've probably gotten the greatest mass of press in my life through not getting nominated. It's definitely been a winning situation as far as I'm concerned.

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.

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.

Not only do I recommend Wendell Berry to anyone who will talk to me for more than seven seconds, but I buy his books in quantity and send them to people. I bought a few dozen of his newest, "Our Only World."

Don't use barbiturates before going on stage. And be honest.

It was on a van ride home from the movie set that everything came together. I realized I had to get off Twitter. It just struck me that I couldn't stop everyone else from doing it, but I could certainly stop myself.

I come from a family of fishermen. Fishing is very important to us. We don't hunt. We're not gun folk.