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" When I was growing up, I didn't know who Jewish people were, what it was to be Jewish. "

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" You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24. "

" The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought. "

" I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college. "

" Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences. "

" Sometimes you'll have a heckler who's actually attempting to be supportive, but you don't realize it. Their way of expressing it is kind of confusing. "

" Pain is funnier than love. "

" 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. "

" I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film. "

" You have to be delusional to be a comedian. "

" I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset. "

" Media is so weird; everything is so accessible now. It used to be this thing where, if you did something on 'This American Life,' this predates me, but when David Sedaris did it, for example, it would just play, people who heard it heard it, and then the book would come out a year later, and people would be like, 'Ahh, I kind of remember that.' "

" 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.' "

" Ultimately, jokes are this really special thing that we can all share. It's exciting to have basically a thousand people in a room together that can laugh at the same time, but I think of it almost as, like, a religious experience. "

" I have a following, but it's small. I have this level of fame where people spot me in the airport, consistently, but they always think they're the only one who ever has. People will think they win a prize when they recognize me. "

" I couldn't recommend more that people put themselves in a situation where they can see a lot of work that they admire, and for free. "

" What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray. "

" Every sleep doctor I've talked to said it was an urban legend that you shouldn't wake up a sleepwalker. All that will happen is that you will get condescended to. "

" Starbucks is the last public space with chairs. It's a shower for homeless people. And it's a place you can write all day. The baristas don't glare at you. They don't even look at you. "

" I'm a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in 'Once' there are the musicians that hang out together. "

" Sometimes I take this women's exercise class called Core Fusion at a place called Exhale. I shouldn't say it's a women's class. There's maybe two men. "

" It's interesting how sleepwalking in a certain way becomes an accumulation of your outside stimuli that's actually there and what's happening in your brain. "

" When I go to bed at night, I wear a sleeping bag. And for a long time, I wore mittens so that I couldn't open the sleeping bag. "

" I'm incapable of feeling any joy. "

" Every comedian comes to a fork in the road where they have to decide if they're going to make jokes about other people or make jokes about themselves. I chose myself. "

" People come to my shows on purpose as opposed to coming to a 'comedy show.' Which was always my goal. "

" Louis C.K. directs his show, which is very much like a series of short films. "

" I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear. "

" 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. "

" I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that. "

" I've become good friends with Lena Dunham, and the thing I had in common with Lena when I was 24 is I was as ambitious as she was. What we don't have in common is that I was not as talented. My voice was not as clearly defined. "