Paul Reiser Quotes

By shrewdly linking procreation to an act likely to make you stupid with excitement, God has seen to it that Life does indeed go on. It's possible, by the way, that this is why God's name comes up so often in the middle of the act; it's a salute to the author: Hey, whoever made this up - thanks.

The biggest thing I remember is that there was just no transition. You hit the ground diapering.

When people talk about wanting to have children someday, what they really mean is that they want babies. Nobody wants an angry adolescent. Nobody wants an obnoxious seven-year-old trying to wear out dirty words they just learned in school that day. What they really want is cute, adorable babies who love you and need you. The bad stuff is just the price you agree to pay for having the good stuff.

I remember my wife and I used to get on plane and see everybody else with their babies. They'd be putting strollers and car seats up above, and we'd think: Oh, please Lord, don't make us go through that

We had the boy's name picked out, but we didn't have a girl's. When he turned out to be a boy, we were so relieved. Literally, in the middle of contracting and pushing, and with my wife being drugged - out and half - lucid, we were still coming up with names.

Nothing would make me happier if Peter Falk would finally win his Oscar for this. Not just as the writer but as a fan and a friend. It would be so great

The most challenging part of being a dad is trying to postpone the moment when they realize you don't know anything. I love any sentence that begins with Daddy...? because it's implied they're looking up to you - that you'll have the answer. The truth is, I don't have any answers.

We all hold on to some image of the family we want, based one way or another on the family we had. Lots of people are thrilled about the families they came from, others couldn't get away fast enough. Most people fall into that vast middle ground: great affection mixed with a few ideas for improvement. A couple of things they wish could have perhaps been done differently.

I'd never directed before and this movie's too important to me to put in the hands of some guy who has never directed. Even if it's me

I've come to realize that making it your life's work to be different than your parents is not only hard to do, it's a dumb idea. Not everything we found fault with was necessarily wrong; we were right, for example, to resent, as kids, being told when to go to bed. We'd be equally wrong, as parents, to let our kids stay up all night. To throw out all the tools of parenting just because our parents used them would be like making yourself speak English without using ten letters of the alphabet; it's hard to do.

My wife would say my worst habit is that I'm not good at dropping subjects. If something bothers me, I'll bring it up endlessly and relentlessly. I think it's a search for clarity, but she uses different words.

If a tree falls on your head in a forest and no one hears it, it still hurts.

The consumer mentality - we like something, what other flavor does it come in? We like that TV show, does it come in a book form? Does it come in a capsule? How about a soup?

We have such a long, familiar history with Peter Falk. The minute his mug is on that screen people smile.

And after you've done the acting, there's a lot of places you can put your input - in the editing, in the production of it, in the rewriting of it and so on

But the two of them together, broke my heart. Olympia and Peter, those scenes... When they're kissing in their 20s and then kissing in their 70s, that's what it is. And they had never met five minutes before they shot those scenes.

I'm not smart enough to write about something that didn't actually happen to me. But I couldn't write a space movie if you put a gun to my head.

My parenting style could be described as not good cop or bad cop so much as nervous cop. I'm always yelling for somebody to stop because they're about to get hurt. I'm the take a jacket, slow down guy.

In the history of life, no good news has followed that sentence ["We have to talk."].

Happiness is the quiet lull between problems.

But you get past that and realize you have to let go of what you think you want. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Right now, go and be with that baby. Just play with this beautiful little boy

In fact, I had the idea because of Peter Falk. I saw my dad watching a Peter Falk movie and something clicked in my head. I gotta go make a movie for Peter Falk and me

I'd distract myself until finally it was a combination of things. The show was over and I had time on my hands. I had taken time and played and just relaxed.

Marriage is just an elaborate game that allows two selfish people to periodically feel that they're not.

New parents always sound like hucksters in a pyramid scheme. Anyone who has kids and then gets you to go and have kids gets a check from Huckster Headquarters.

Every time I see Peter Falk in the movie I think that would be great. We'd be fun together

Two or three times a week, I drive by the houses of numbers 78-100 just to rub it in.