Paul Reiser Quotes

In traditional TV, it's very hard to have the luxury of banking all your scripts and getting everything in a row, but it does make it very easy, and it's very productive and beneficial and you learn as you're going.

When you get busy, the priorities change. In your twenties, you hang out with who you were in school with. Then you grow up and you hang out with the people you're playing ball with, things you like doing with. When you get married, it changes a bit and you lose some friends, or you gain other friends. You gain couple-y friends. It changes again when you have children, and then when your children are the focus of your life.

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

She kind of reminds one of Helen. There's something very similar about Elizabeth Perkins.

They don't see that whole pattern. Worm/death. Worm/death. I would catch on.

The jewel in the baby product crown is the stroller. And if in America you are what you drive, then in Parentland, you are what you push.

Why do you think people close their eyes when they kiss? Think about it. In the real world, if you saw someone an-inch-and-a-half away, coming at you with their eyes open and their lips puckered, you'd scream. It's alarming.

There are two types of people in life - those who get it and those who don't.

You know, the fact that every morning you get a script in your mailbox, that's going to stop. All these little pedestrian, mundane things. And the cash.

And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently

He was born early. But he was born within a safe range of premature.

The simple combination of letters and sounds you select as a name for your baby can result in a life of carefree coolness or decades of expensive therapy. Hi, I'm Jake versus Hi, I'm... Tapioca

There's something very refreshing about being on stage.

People come up to us and ask how we knew so much about their own family... I'm talking about people from faraway places, too. I get people from Turkey and Chile coming up to me and saying I wrote about their family.

As you get older you realize your parents don't look so dumb - and that you're not as smart as you thought you were.

But at the same time that the experience is pulling you apart, it's also bonding you. You have this joint venture! You both made this baby. And that's the thing I still can't get over

It's not like some movies where you're following a bunch of different stories you can cut around. There was nowhere to cut to. It's these guys. We're not cutting back to anybody else

Upstate New York in the middle of October. You can't get more beautiful than that.

It was trying to make my tennis game look mildly respectable, which I found you don't even really need to practice if you have a really good editor. They can edit it and you're like, "Hey, it looks like I'm playing really well." That was the fun part, but it was like going to summer camp.

Once in a while you get a moment of clarity - an inspiration - and they don't come that frequently.

The most rewarding part about being a dad is just looking at children who didn't exist at some point. The first time you saw them, they were the size of a quarter, in a sonogram, and now they can pour orange juice and yell at each other.

A friend told me to listen to my heart. Another friend told me to listen to my gut. Maybe I need an autopsy, because right now my colon is kind of iffy.

Sometimes it works out well, and certain household responsibilities fall naturally to those who like doing them. For example, my wife likes to pack suitcases, I like to unpack them. My wife likes to buy groceries, I like to put them away. I do. I like the handling and discovering, and the location assignments. Cans - over there. Fruit - over there. Bananas - not so fast. You go over here. When you learn not to go bad so quickly, then you can stay with the rest of your friends.

When you realize you would consider not having a child just so you could take an occasional snooze and be available to see Batman Retires the same weekend it comes out, you have to take a good hard look at yourself and acknowledge, I am a shallow, shallow person.

People often ask me, "What's the difference between couplehood and babyhood?" In a word? Moisture. Everything in my life is now more moist. Between your spittle, your diapers, your spit-up and drool, you got your baby food, your wipes, your formula, your leaky bottles, sweaty baby backs, and numerous other untraceable sources-all creating an ever-present moistness in my life, which heretofore was mainly dry.

Just because a baby cries, I discovered, doesn't mean there's always something wrong. Sometimes babies wake up for no real reason. They just want to check if they're doing it right. "This is Sleeping, right?" "Exactly." "I just lie here?" "That's right." "Okay." Then back to sleep they go.

I used to walk into a party and scan the room for attractive women. Now I look for women to hold my baby so I can eat potato salad sitting down.

The first time I tried to put a new diaper on my baby, I yanked the little Velcro strap too jerkily and actually punched the little guy in the jaw. A real solid shot, too. I knew instinctively that this could not be correct. Unless you're specifically trying to raise a welterweight, continual deliverance of powerful uppercuts is not advised when handling newborns.

The best part of being married is... you don't have to explain a lot of things. Those wordless moments when you both know that what you witnessed together is funny, idiotic, or really sweet. Being connected is pretty miraculous.

In the original draft I was 27 and Peter was 55 in the script. That's not the same as a guy in his 40s and a dad in the end of his 70s. It's a different point in both our lives.

You know what? The obvious is obvious for a reason.

Middle names are kind of like vice presidents: It's a fine distinction and certainly an honor, but you're never not aware that someone else got the real job.

Over the years, there certainly have been plenty of ideas that I've had and given up on, but for this one, the only thing that was standing in its way was me doing it - I just had to write it... And then if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. But I didn't want it to be for lack of effort on my part, so I had hunch that it would be a good story and that we would work well together. And it certainly worked out that way.

The most used appliance in our house is my 10-year-old son Leon's Xbox.

So where did these cravings come from? I concluded it's the baby ordering in. Prenatal takeout. Even without ever being in a restaurant, fetuses develop remarkably discerning palates, and they are not shy about demanding what they want. If they get a hankering, they just pick up the umbilical cord and call. 'You know what would taste good right now? A cheeseburger, large fries, and a vanilla shake. And if you could, hurry it up, because I'm supposed to grow a lung in a half hour.'

There's something that happens in that delivery room, when a woman becomes ten times more a woman, and a guy becomes six times less a man. You feel really dopey and useless and like a spectator. I did, anyway.

When you're in @#*!#-ing hell, your forehead can feel a wee bit feverish. (By the way, that's the way my wife actually curses. She doesn't use dirty words; she'll literally say "asterisk, pound sign, exclamation point, the-letter-'A'-with-a-circle-around-it, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk.")

Peanut butter and lamb chops were not foods that had ever been a significant part of our life before pregnancy. In fact, my wife almost never ate either.So where did these craving come from? I concluded it's the baby, ordering in.

My wife and I never agree on the dishtowels. It's a matter of terms. She asks me not to put the dishtowel in the sink. So I drape it over the sink, but not in the sink. If that's our biggest problem, I think we're in good shape.

Field of Dreams is the only movie - and I saw it in the theater - on an afternoon when I was on location somewhere, and there were like 12 people in the theater. I was just so devastated; I couldn't get out of my seat. And I sat and watched it a second time.

Parents often give middle names just so that later, when they're yelling at the kid, they can drag it out. Henry David Thoreau, you come in here this instant!

It turns out most of the conclusions that I've come to in life have equally valid contradictions. I think it's true you need to make a plan, set a goal and stick to it, but I would also advise: Don't keep your eyes so fixed on your goal that you miss what sneaks up to surprise you, because magic will come from unexpected places.

A new child in the house is a huge tourist attraction. It's like Disneyland, except there the lines are longer and no one brings casseroles.

I always loved comedy, but I never knew it was something you could learn to do. I always thought that some people are born comedians ... just like some people are born dentists.

Our date-nightrule is no talking about the kids. That lasts about to the end of the driveway.

Younger kids, they understand that things aren't so perfect with their father or with their mother.

There was a period where our child's birth was getting really close, and we still had nothing. We were dangerously close to calling him Untitled Baby Project.

Three has always been tougher than Two. Think of any of your famous threesomes. The Three Stooges? Look at the anger there. My bet is that before Curly was born, Moe and Larry could play together for hours without even a single poke in the eye. Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Donald Duck never had a moment's peace. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? I rest my case.