Comedian

Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance.

Comedy unites, it doesn't divide!

I was very much a late bloomer. That's not to say that girls didn't express interest in me from time to time, but I just, I did not know how to respond to that.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I think your tendency when you play yourself is to accentuate something about you that you think is the funny thing about you.

There's nothing funny the first time about telling a story about getting beat up and it makes you leave high school.

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.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

Fortunately, I don't talk about politics on stage.

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.'

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.

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.

Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is.

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.

Directing a movie is a little bit like being back in student government and putting on the homecoming dance. You're like, 'You put up the streamers, and you hire the DJ, and you get the punch bowl.' Some people are just like, 'This dance sucks.' And you're like, 'No no, this dance is awesome!' You have to be really positive.

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