All the truly great stand-ups say, "I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work." To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

Is it bad when you refer to all alcohol as "Pain Go Bye-Bye Juice"?

To get asked to do stuff like 'United States Of Tara' and 'Caprica' is terrific. I can't complain.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, 'Well, I've had it with humanity.' But I was wrong.

Nowadays - and I don't want to make some dopey cultural statement here - everyone can be, just by existing in society, because we all have a ship that we follow. Even if it's other people, like on MySpace pages, we're just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we're in.

I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything.