There's no destination. There's no getting anywhere. There's just the going. The key to life is to make the going really fun. Because people that are like, โIf I just get to this, then boom!โ And then they get there and there's this dawning of an afterwards. Whereas I'm just always in the going. And it's not a frantic going like, โI gotta keep going or I'm gonna go nuts!โ I can not do anything for weeks or months if I need to and just sit and read books or watch movies. I'm just as fine consuming and absorbing new art as I am trying to make it. But it's all in the going.
Patton OswaltI love doing movies, but right now, television is the way Hollywood was in the late '60s and early '70s. The dream era I would have loved to have been part of in Hollywood then is happening right now, but it's happening on television, with these big complicated story arcs and real character-driven shows and sheer ambiguity left and right.
Patton OswaltEverything we have today that's cool comes from someone wanting more of something they loved in the past. Action figures, videogames, superhero movies, iPods: All are continuations of a love that wanted more.
Patton OswaltYou saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.
Patton OswaltThere are times when I have to take, I call it a โsilence bath,โ where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.
Patton OswaltI had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out if me with steel pipes.
Patton OswaltAs you get older, as a comedian, and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
Patton Oswalt