Michael Ian Black Quotes

I don't think I was awake for much of my childhood. I did a lot of napping. This might have been a defensive measure against encroaching depression. Until about the age of eleven or twelve, I had zero interests other than trying to steal gumballs from supermarket gumball machines.

The thing that I think is the most important is taking moments to express your appreciation to your partner. A thank you or a quick kiss can go a long way toward affirming your relationship and commitment to each other. That's not hard to do even when you're juggling insane careers and three kids.

I don't chase after things, but I put forward the effort and know the rest of it is out of my hands.

I don't necessarily self-identify as a writer, 'cause it implies a certain level of intelligence.

There is no word for feeling nostalgic about the future, but that's what a parent's tears often are, a nostalgia for something that has not yet occurred. They are the pain of hope, the helplessness of hope, and finally, the surrender to hope.

When you're writing something, and you're putting yourself out there, or you're performing and someone comes in and savages that, then of course it feels personal. It doesn't feel like it's just business, because there's no business - it's not like we're conducting business, this anonymous critic and I. It's just that this person is tearing me a new asshole.

The thing about narcissistic people is that they don't think they're being narcissistic.

Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic, but don't give it more attention than it deserves.

I take my coffee like I take my women... strong... black... and proud.

Internet fame is like regular fame only without all the annoying 'money' and 'power.'

Super excited about things I'm going to do; never excited about things I'm actually doing.

As a game-show host, what I'm thinking and what I'm experiencing doesn't matter. My opinion doesn't matter. So there's a flattened reality to it. It's fun to do. But it's certainly not myself in totality - or even maybe a little bit.

My absolute favorite growing up was Super Friends. The assemblage of so many mighty heroes in one place was, to me, mind-blowing. It was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, and then sometimes Hawkman and some other, lesser heroes.

I loved Dungeons & Dragons. Actually, not so much the actual playing as the creation of characters and the opportunity to roll twenty-sided dice. I loved those pouches of dice Dungeon Masters would trundle around, loved choosing what I was going to be: warrior, wizard, dwarf, thief.

You have to lead, in the case of a game show, a contestant through the architecture of the show. So there's a lot of rules there, literal and implied, that you have to navigate.

Whatever I write I publish. Because that's where the money is.

So my reaction to hearing this corny-ass, horrible song ["With Arms Wide Open" by Creed] is violent, uncontrollable, sustained weeping.

The whole idea of punk rock is that you're dressing yourself in a crazy leather jacket with safety pins and a Mohawk. The idea of being the rebel is a boring societal idea. It's such a type. And that's what I was, without knowing it.

Shuffling really isn't something you should be doing on your deathbed.

Hosting a show, even a talk show or a game show, there's so much business you have to conduct. There's so much guiding you have to do.

Hosting a game show is so bizarre and uniquely its own thing. Anytime I'm hosting something, I try to bring as much of myself to it as I can, but it's always going to be incomplete.

I probably should be thinking of better ideas on how to promote myself, but I don't really spend a lot of time doing it. I really don't know how to promote effectively.

I think writing for anybody helps you order your life. It helps you arrange your emotions and your thoughts and it helps to provide perspective.

By the end of the time I'm writing a book, I'm tearing my hair out and I want to go do stand-up. And then I want to do something else. I don't know why it is true with me that I can't just be satisfied doing the one thing, but I'm constantly flitting from one thing to another.

As an actor, you can show up on a set and be on a TV show for three or four years, or whatever it is and, by the end of it, you just want to do something else.

The characters that I have on Twitter have very little resemblance to me, the person who's writing them.

I was very surprised how many people were earnestly reminiscing about the '80s. It's such a stupid thing to do, like, to be honestly invested in nostalgia. It never even occurred to me to do that.

I'll never admit that I'm an actor, because the next horrible follow-up question is always, "Oh, what have I seen you in?"

Any time I am involved in something from conception to execution, that's obviously a lot more personal, and I'm going to be more invested in it than something where I just show up for a couple days, shoot, and leave.

Things you never thought were going to turn into something end up being the most important things in your life. You have to learn to not try to control it.

I thought I'd be living a much more bohemian life and be very poor. I never thought I'd do comedy or be married living in the suburbs. Every time I try to plan my life out it just doesn't come to pass, and I think that's a great experience.

Whatever expectations I had for myself, none of them have come to pass. I grew up thinking I was going to be an actor, which I am. But I thought I'd be a very serious sort of Shakespearean guy going from town to town having sex with various Juliets all over the country.

I think people just love to win.

If I revise a children's book, if I'm spending three hours on the first draft, I'm probably spending 30 minutes revising it. I mean, come on! But to redo a painting? That's hard work.

There is something about the human condition. I don't think dogs are like "If only I was a poodle instead of a golden retriever, I'd be totally happy." Dogs are happy with who they are.

It doesn't matter what you're chasing, when you get there you're gonna be like, "Oh, is this all? It kind of sucks."

I can be a snarky Asshole, or I can be sort of mentally impaired. It's very hard for me to just be normal human being.

The illustrators work so much harder on the books than the writers do. I mean, that's so much work doing what they do, and it's terrible for them.

My process is surprisingly straightforward. I find myself with little to do over a stretch of time and I say, "I should write children's books today." Then I sit down and write a children's book, and if it takes more than, realistically, three hours, I feel like I've done something wrong.

There's things I know I'm good at, and those things interest me less and less. I learn a lot more from doing it wrong than I do from doing it right.

I don't really read children's books or deal with children's books, so I don't have any relationship with them other than my own.

I feel no obligation to teach my readers anything, to impart any sort of wisdom, to teach any sort of lesson, to instill any sort of morality. All I'm trying to do is make them and their parents laugh.

My goal is to work. That's the goal of most actors or performers: to work and keep working, and do the best you can, and keep growing and changing, trying to improve your craft.

I don't watch that much comedy. I think it's professional jealousy. That and a lack of support for my community.

I imagine there's a level of narcissism that goes into thinking you're enough.

My fear is if I expose myself, not so much that I'll be hurt, but that the reaction will be "Is that all there is? Is that the entirety of you? Because it's boring."

That's been my fear all along. That I'm not enough, and I still don't trust at all that I am.

I'm enough of an optimist and a patriot to believe that in U.S. you have a lot of opportunity and can do pretty much anything you want in some form. For me, the idea of failure is far preferable to the idea of regret.

If you say "I'm going to be an actor, but I'll get a teaching degree just in case," when things get hard, you'll just be a teacher and that's how you get stuck.

The Atkins' diet is where you eat bacon for six or seven months...and the end result is that you lose weight. Because you're dead.