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" Sometimes I'll go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of groceries as though I knew how to cook, which I don't, and as though I was going to be home for the next six days, which I won't. "
Mike Birbiglia
Go
Sometimes
Cook
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" It sounds so nerdy and pathetic, but what I always do on Sunday afternoon is bring my inbox down to zero, which is so sad. But e-mail has become like homework for adults. I'll have 141 messages from people who will be offended if I don't write back. "
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" I like 'Donnie Darko;' it's a cool take on dreams and sleep. "
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" I never looked at my parents' marriage or really anyone who had been married more than 30 years and thought, 'I gotta get me some of that!' "
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" I'd much rather try and fail than talk about trying. "
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" I sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that's how people find their favorite bands and comedians. "
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" It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa. "
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" It's a difficult line to tread, where sometimes you go to the movies or you watch someone do publicity for movies or TV shows, and they do all the jokes that are good in the promotion of it, and you see the movie, and you're like, 'I kind of get it already. I'm not that psyched about it.' "
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" When I was starting out, I thought I would go into comedy and there would be a mentor, like the Philip Seymour Hoffman character in 'Almost Famous,' in my life, and there just wasn't. It was really frustrating for me because I desired that so much. "
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" Once you start writing something obsessively, it's almost like someone has to rip it from your hands in order for you to put it down. "
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" People are making better and better small budge independent films these days. "
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" If I dream that I'm directing, it's not a film, it's like a commercial for cotton candy, and I've got four feet of cotton candy all around me that I've got to break through, like a brick wall or a fortress. "
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" My last name has the word 'big' in it. It seems like a logical progression that if you shed away the Bir and the lia, I'll just be Big. "
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" Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.' "
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" What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray. "
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" In terms of comedy, there was a Seinfeldian era of comedy that I love but got played out. Seinfeld was great, but then after him it was people acting like Seinfeld and making observations that we felt like we'd kind of heard before, and then you're seeing Seinfeldian comedy in commercials. Suddenly everything is observational funniness. "
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" I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding. "
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" I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody. "
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" The economy of film forces you to make choices. "
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" Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance. "
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" The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer. "
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" I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can't say that about their fans. "
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" I think that my regrets mostly have to do with my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. Every once in a while, you get those flashback memories of conversations you had with your exes, and you just, like, wince when you're walking down the street. Something occurs to you, 'Oh, no, I said that.' "
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" People come to my shows on purpose as opposed to coming to a 'comedy show.' Which was always my goal. "
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" Sometimes people say, 'You're the best at digressions.' And that's actually a real compliment to me. "
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" I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else. "
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" The thing with film is that it's so wide-reaching compared to comedy. When I release my comedy special, half a million people will see it. If I release a movie, five to ten million people will see it. "
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" After I perform 'My Girlfriend's Boyfriend,' it takes a lot out of me emotionally; and, at the end of it, I feel like I know the audience and the audience knows me. It's this weird unspoken bond that we'll kind of always have with each other. "
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" I am diagnosed with what's called 'REM behavior disorder.' As far as the disorder goes, there's no cure, but it's going pretty well as far as these things go. I see a sleep doctor, take medication, etc. "
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" First time films are hard. Even with some of the greatest directors, you look back at their first film, and you are just going, 'That movie is kind of bad.' "
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" Once you've made your first feature, you know what you can do wrong and how hard it is to shoot a feature. Before you do it, you just don't know how hard it is. Once you've done it, when you're writing a second one, it's almost like you're preparing, and it's almost holding you back. "
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