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

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" Over the years, I managed to develop this comedy career, went from opening act to headliner at comedy clubs, to playing concert halls, and had an off-Broadway show with 'Sleepwalk With Me.' "

" I've found, being in Los Angeles, it's like living in a live-action Planet Hollywood. "

" I was a screenwriting major at Georgetown, and I was in class with some really strong writers like Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote 'The Dark Knight' with Chris, his brother. He wrote 'The Prestige,' the story for 'Memento.' "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" I actually wasn't really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, 'You're fat. You're gay. I'm outta here!' I was always more kind of awkward and introspective. "

" 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. "

" I like 'Donnie Darko;' it's a cool take on dreams and sleep. "

" I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody. "

" I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody. I'm a comedian and a writer. "

" 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. "

" You know the expression, 'You're only as sick as your secrets?' I believe that, and I think I try to have my work live by that to a degree. "

" I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding. "

" You can't go to medical school and come out and be like, 'I'm going to be a dog catcher.' That would be so pointless. "

" Sometimes people say, 'You're the best at digressions.' And that's actually a real compliment to me. "

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

" 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. "

" I've actually always wanted to write like a one-person show that was sort of a romantic comedy - a show that was kind of cynical about romance and marriage but ultimately embraced it. Because I feel like comedy is always cynical, inherently, because it's contrarian. "

" 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'm incapable of feeling any joy. "

" Random people, celebrities of note come to your shows over the years, and I've had some really strange ones. Like the guy from Kiss. Gene Simmons has literally been in the audience at my shows, like, four times. I don't know if he knows me; he's just a big fan of comedy. "

" I just like, when you look at people who have long careers in film, they're able to make films that are far away from themselves, because they're metaphorical. It creates more opportunities, I think. "

" I drank the Kool-Aid of being a network star. Once it didn't happen, I realized it wasn't the best version of my comedy. "

" When I started out, I really struggled as a comic because no one knew who I was, and sometimes I was telling stories, so it would take a while for people to get on board for things. "

" 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. "

" Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams. "

" As a comedian, you want people to like you. That's part of why you're there in the first place: You have this unquenchable need to be liked, and then when you divert from that and take a chance at doing something that has moments of fierce unlikeability, you can hit some real low points. "

" 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. "

" 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. "