Marc maron quotes

I was married once before, and I stopped.

The truth is, I can’t read anything with any distance. Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better.

It's not all about love. That's half of it... The other half is about that moment you have with yourself when you're looking in the mirror, and you just go, 'Oh man. I'm going to compromise my dreams, get fat, sick, old and die someday. I kind of want to have someone around for that.'

We live in a culture where people are self-centered and careerist and everybody seems to think they have too much on their plate or they just don't have time for other people's pain.

I’m glad to be part of the war on sadness. I’m a part time employee of the illusion that keeps people stupid.

That’s the big challenge of life—to chisel disappointment into wisdom so people respect you and you don’t annoy your friends with your whining.

I'm not completely sure we aren't all living in a hallucination now.

Most of my comedy writing happens through improvisation on stage; doing it in the moment. Going up with an idea and fleshing it out over time on stage and in front of people until it becomes a full bit.

On some level any appearance on Television can be seen as a product endorsement.

Conversation is a beautiful thing. When I was a younger guy, just wandering around talking to people was what kept me connected to the world.

I'm just very sort of compulsive and lack the ability to keep things in perspective. If I'm not writing or playing guitar or on the microphone or out on the road, I'm cleaning pots and pans or freaking out about some plumbing issue or tweeting.

One thing I'm grateful for, and also surprised and excited about, is that I have a place in the community of comics now. In a real way. And I honor that. A lot of what I do is in support of the community and bringing new talent - talking to people that people don't know. And defining us as a community.

We need the children of Indonesia and the Philippines to manufacture our freedom of choice.

You know when you make popcorn there are always those fluffy white kernels that are fun and good to eat but there are also always those burnt, black kernels that don’t pop. You know why they don’t pop? Because they have integrity.

I used to do a lot of drugs. I didn't stop because I didn't enjoy them; I stopped because I couldn't handle the commitment.

What comics sacrifice and what lives they live - I know that most of their lives, their adult lives, they're sitting around or walking around with notebooks, writing things down. Usually they're fairly sensitive. Usually they're very bright. And that makes them poets.

There's a fine line between cultural criticism and bitterness.

My dad is actually a manic depressive, which is very exciting half the time.

I don't make a list of questions. Ever. I think a lot of my interviews are driven by my need to feel connection.

We live in an age where people are like, "I'd love to catch up. Maybe text me later? But don't call because I don't really listen to my messages. But if you text me..." We've displaced interaction into sound bites and untethered phrases and sentences that come up on the phone as Twitter feed.

Whether people know the evolution of the conversation or not, I don't know, but thematically, as a comedian, I stay in the same ballpark - around my issues and my philosophy of life.

I once talked about wanting to kill myself, but I don't think I was ever really planning on doing it. It was just comforting to know that I could.

I'm interested in the fact that comics are people who are oddly courageous in their desire and their commitment to sacrificing any sense of normalcy in their lives, any sense of security, and most of them are oddly unique individuals. Let's have a broader conversation with people that have spent their last however-many-years thinking about their lives. I mean, they're philosophers. They're poets. They're people who are on the outside looking in at the world through a different set of values.

I'm weird; I have a very strange emotional memory. I really somehow hold on to even passing moments with people.

The worst thing about living in this world, in general, is that things get overwhelming, and things cause a tremendous amount of despair and anxiety.

I found a great deal of relief and excitement watching comics when I was very young. My grandmother was very into them and so was my grandfather. They had a profound effect on me, so I just found myself watching comedians on the after-school shows: Merv Griffin and that kind of stuff.

Most of my comedy writing happens through improvisation on stage; doing it in the moment.

When I was a young comic in New York and I wasn't getting any work, I was wandering around the Lower East Side with my notebook. I would stop at the guitar place on St. Mark's and talk to that dude for a while, then I'd go to the bookstore and talk to that dude for a little while. I had a guy over at the record store, and I'd talk to him for a while. It kept me connected to life.

I immediately went out and bought a book on anger management. And now I have that book, and I don't know if I'll get to the book. But I'm certainly excited about the day where I can't find the book, and I get to say, 'Where the hell is my anger management book?!'

They are not testing comics for drugs. If our job is dependent on that, there would be three working comics in the country, and two of them would have puppets.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you're one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?

Comics seemed to have a handle on things. They could sort of disarm and get control over reality. I found it very comforting to laugh.

I didn't know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I'm flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.

People who have babies tell me I will know a love that is beyond anything I can imagine, and a joy that is indescribable. Love and joy? That sounds horrifying. I have no way of knowing whether I can handle either of those. I'm much better with need and fear. They are what ground me.

In my life, I didn't get into comedy to be - I had no business model. All I wanted to do was, basically, finish becoming myself. And you stand in front of people and be seen and heard in this format. I thought it was the most practical format for me to express whatever it was I was going through. Whatever my ideas were in my evolving philosophy about life. I obviously don't sell out theaters. I'm not a household name. I'm not incredibly consistent in terms of doing the same act over and over again, and I'm definitely working out a lot of my existential issues onstage.

I came upon whatever I'm doing organically. I didn't study anything. I don't have any real aspirations other than to connect with somebody, and to have the conversation be genuine. That's the best that can happen. Even if it only happens for 10 minutes in an episode. But I think what people forget is that you don't have to try to get a comedian to be funny. Comedians are innately funny. That the real challenge of talking to them is to get them talking about real things and then see where they need to be funny. And let them do that on their own volition.

We’re built to deal with death, disease, failure, struggle, heartbreak, problems. It’s what separates us from the animals and why we envy and love animals so much. We’re aware of it all and have to process it. The way we each handle being human is where all the good stories, jokes, art, wisdom, revelations, and bullshit come from.

When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.

I'm a guy that after having experience in radio and stuff, if I can trust the people I'm working with, I get a real thrill with working with other people who are good at what they do.

When you actually meet the devil and he offers you a deal most artists eventually negotiate.

I'm just looking for authentic engagement of some kind, and usually, after an hour or more, you get that. Some people talk at you. Some people just want to answer questions, but a lot of times, all of a sudden you drift away, and you don't remember you're on the mic, and you're in something real.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

That's an animal fable about humility. If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you're fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you're not immortal and you've got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off and fly away.

You hope to see an arc of growth in your ability to become a character on television.

Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.

You can't avoid pain in life. It's how you handle pain, that's what defines you.

In most cases the only difference between depression and disappointment is your level of commitment.

All I can do in the context of pursuing any sort of TV thing, and all I've done in the past, is offer your life at any given point in time to whatever situation you're in.

I don't care what anybody says, I think that George Bush is absolutely the right president to oversea the end of the world.

In the sixties and seventies you could probably name all the great comics. It was still special.

Your insecurity and neediness is what makes you a big neurotic ball of comedy genius.

A lot of people think that Jesus is coming back. That's fine, it's your right. But you know, I live in New York, and I think he's running a little late. I'm asking myself, 'Alright, what happens if Jesus comes back tomorrow? What - does he make rounds to churches?' 'OK, everyone who's been good, buses leave in 10 minutes. I'll meet you in front of the post office. I gotta go. Oh, don't tell the Jews I'm back.'

I'm not for everyone. I'm barely for me.

I think the reason Jesus is so popular, just on a celebrity level, is that he died at the peak of his career.

They used to have a smoking section at most airports. No more. They now have these glass-encased rooms. You're not just a smoker, you're an example to other people. You're an exhibit at a futuristic zoo.

It may have lost its special-ness forever and the clubs might not being doing well but I think standup is in the best shape it has been in a long time.

Hopefully standup will become special again.

Let's be honest, this is a consumer based economy in America. That's all we manufacture here is need and appetite. We are the world's mouth. They make things in other countries, and they're like, 'Send it to America; they'll eat it.'

I don't seek controversy. I don't seek to antagonize. Sometimes it happens, but I'm not there to argue politics.

God doesn't seem to talk to people like he used to. Who's he talking to now? I don't know. Then I'm walking down the street in Manhattan one day, and I realize maybe it's those guys you see walking down the street talking to themselves. You know, those guys that are like, 'I can't! No, I can't!' Maybe the other side of that conversation is God going, 'You're the new leader.' 'No I can't!' They're not crazy - they're reluctant prophets.

Is there any indication we shouldn't be depressed - are you living on the same planet that I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we're going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step, or at least into taking some different course of action so we might survive? Do you ever think that maybe it's the happy people that are really screwed up in the head?

Everyone is a little bitter. We're born bitter. The personality itself is really just a very complex defense mechanism. A reaction to the first time someone said, "No you can't.

The medium of podcasting and the personal nature of it, the relationship you build with your listeners and the relationship they have with you - they could be just sitting there, chuckling and listening... there's nothing like that.

Buying my wife a gun sort of like me saying, ' You know, I kinda want to kill myself, but I want it to be a surprise'.

I've had this look for about a year. I usually grow this beard out around Christmas. I like to go to malls dressed as Jesus, and I like to then walk around the mall and go, 'No! No! This wasn't what it was supposed to be about, people!' Then if there's a Santa at the mall, I walk up to him and say, 'Listen, fat man, you're just a clown at my birthday party.'

Once I learned how to talk, personally, by myself to any number of people, which means do radio without talking to anyone in particular on the air - I just found that my brain became very free to engage in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style of doing what I do.

Americans don't understand irony? I am an intelligent person living in the United States. My entire existence is ironic.

As a performer you are being used to keep people watching so the commercial endorsements that support the network can be seen by as many people as possible.

I feel bad for people who have never been addicted to anything, because they're the real losers. You want to know why? Because they don't know what it's like to really want something - and then get it again and again and again.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it's taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

I'm just saying, 'Hey, throw me a bone. How about a smile, cute t-shirt? Look at me.' Nothing - unless it's a turn to their friends to go, 'Hey, why is that weird guy looking at us?'

I believe in God... just in case. It's like there's some list somewhere and you don't want to be on it. I don't want to say THERE'S NO GOD! and then die and say, Oh, Hi... Is there some kind of community service I can do?

When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.

There was a period when I was getting a lot of banana bread, because I mentioned someone cooked me banana bread, and then everyone cooked me baked stuff, and I would take it to the hotel, and it was making me fat.

I knew most of my radio listeners were lefty political people, and I decided definitively not to be that guy - not to address politics.

Well, evolution's just a theory.' And, I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, thank goodness gravity's a law.'

I'm proud to be part of a generation where reading is a 'look.'

I'm not a moron, but science fiction to me requires a suspension of disbelief and honest curiosity or fascination in that kind of bullshit. I've just never been able to make that jump, really. I like things to be more organic.

I've become less angry and a little more humble by age and by experience and by going through the ups and downs of life.

I seem to offend everybody. I just never got into the universe. I don't seem to have a tremendous amount of discipline or patience with having to follow a story that is really multi-leveled and science-fiction.

You get all excited to give her the ring, and it's real emotional, and you give it to her, and she cries. And a second later, you're like, 'Damn, I could have had a car.'

I look at every book as a self-help book.

Maybe depression is the most reasonable response to all the crap around us. Maybe it's the happy people who need medication.

Left wing, right wing, I am wingless and tired of trying to fly. Here comes the ground.

I'm not a racist. It's really case by case; it's not ethnicity specific. It's just the way I react to things that are different. I think that's normal. Everyone's nervous when they're confronted with things that they don't understand or are different. That's a normal human reaction. It doesn't become racist 'til you say things like, 'Oh, there's a lot of them.'

I think things evolve into jokes. I don't generally write them down as jokes. I talk them out.

Art is supposed to punch you in the brain, and it's supposed to stay punched.

I remember seeing Richard Pryor's first movie; it was a midnight movie when I was in high school. I must have been about fifteen. It was one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. I'd never laughed that much.

I'm not a narcissist, but I definitely have gotten enough explosive narcissistic shrapnel from my father. I'm sort of wired that way, but I don't feel that I'm pathological, so all I can pull from is my own existence and my knowledge.

I live in Los Angeles, I know it exists. I know you're not supposed to taste air.

I used to be jealous; I'm not jealous anymore. And a miracle happened to me, because if you're jealous, it's a cancer, it's a plague on your spirit, it really is. And I actually cured jealousy in a very weird way - I cured it with mathematics. And I'm not a math person at all, but I've been with my wife for about seven years, so we have had sex probably, I'd like to think, like, 9 million times or, at least, 1,500. So, the way I figured it, if she goes out and screws some other guy once - I'm still winning.

Jerusalem Syndrome is actually a rare psychological condition that occurs to some visitors to the Middle East. They get to Israel and just snap.

My cats, the ones that I have, were feral when I found them so the relationship that I have with them 10 years in is very mutual, earned, and evolved over time. It was never an easy thing. I like that they have a certain distance and have their own sense of selves.

For 15 years of my life I smoked, I drank, I used to do drugs... but during that time, I never once thought I was going to die. But the second I set foot on a stairmaster -the second- I am sure my heart is gonna explode and blood is gonna spray out of my nose.

The bile makes it better. I am an information wasting machine - 100s of words a day.

There's nothing more horrifying than the possibility or the idea that you will just fade away into obscurity.

It amazes me that we are all on Twitter and Facebook. By "we" I mean adults. We're adults, right? But emotionally we're a culture of seven-year-olds. Have you ever had that moment when are you updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: "Would someone please acknowledge me?

My monologues aren't always funny. They're generally thoughtful. Sometimes at different levels of aggravation. And sometimes no aggravation. But the pressure on me is not to be joke-efficient when I'm talking on this mic. And that sets the tone.

My favorite part is being engaged with somebody's story and life, and getting a laugh with people I have a tremendous amount of respect for or not, and being challenged by the immediacy of conversation.

Faith in the face of disappointment is only enhanced by laughter in the face of pain.

I think seeing Pryor's first movie, Live In Concert, when I was in high school changed my life. Pryor really put the heart in darkness for me.

Dogs are too much to handle. I don't need anything in my house that's needier than me.

It's easy to maintain your integrity when no one is offering to buy it out.

I'm happy, certainly, given the times we're living in, to be doing OK, and to not be worrying about money, and to be producing something I enjoy.

Some of you may be perfectly happy with mediocrity. Some of you will get nothing but heartbreak. Some of you will be heralded as geniuses and become huge. Of course, all of you think that one describes you...hence the delusion necessary to push on.

There's this whole post-modern, nuevo beatnik, retro-bohemian thing going on, you know what I mean? You walk into some coffee shops, and it feels like you're an ex-patriot in Paris in the 20s. You're like, 'Hey, isn't that a young Ernest Hemingway over there? Yeah, I think it is! Hey, let's go have a look and see what he's writing... It's a Gap application.'

The way I figure it, if you can't tell I'm high by looking at me, I win.

If you can't afford the good food or if you can't afford health care or if you don't have a job or if your car is dangerous because you can't get it fixed and you DIE, you just lost the game-bzzzzz-thanks for playing extreme capitalism.

When you commit your life to something and it doesn't work out, it is a tough place to be. Suicide can be the spiritual reprieve of a faithless person. I knew I could always just end it, and there was solace in that.

I think sharing experience makes everything better. When people get talking about how they've overcome something or how they haven't, it's nourishing.

I just wanted to be a good comic and had no sense of show business, but at some point you want the opportunity to write a show about your life.

Surveillance induced morality: relics of cultural retardation.

If you let someone talk for an hour, you're gonna have a pretty good idea of who they are, and I think that's more rewarding than me sitting there going, "That's complete bullshit about health care."

As I became very conscious and more aware of things I got very into the beatniks and that kind of stuff. They were very important to me for a few years.

I didn't really want to kill myself, it just made me feel better to know I could if I wanted to.

There's something about cats' self-sufficiency and their seemingly individualistic ways that I find compelling.

I know that the podcast is typically something I can do forever, because it's mine; it's just me and my producer and business partner, so it's our business.

It seems people are more willing to let other people control their minds now and recreational drug use doesn't seem to have that same renegade sense of adventure that it once did.

The Internet has usurped the collective unconscious and access to cosmic consciousness has become difficult and almost primitive.

For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.

I think most other comics are like, 'I'm going to do my fkin' act and that'll be that.' With me, it's like, 'What if I forget my jokes? What if I can't pull it together? This is going to be a fking disaster!'

I sort of get tired of myself sometimes. When you're busy, your life becomes relatively small. But I don't really get tired of talking to other people.

I have a very primitive sense that if I just turn on a radio or the television, that somebody's playing that stuff for me.

I don't really compartmentalize well. I'm in a state of anxiety and panic a lot, but it's for different reasons. It used to be because I had nothing going on, but I work very hard and there doesn't seem to be an end to it.

He does have that weird mixture of born again Christian and stupid that some people mistake for courage and focus.