Top 100 Marc Maron Quotes
#1. When you hear the things that people have gone through and realize you've gone through the same, it provides an amazing amount of relief. It gives us hope. And I think that's what we're supposed to get from each other. The
Marc Maron
#2. There's something to be said that if everyone likes something there's gotta be something fucking wrong with it on some level. Unless it's ice cream.
Marc Maron
#3. 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.
Marc Maron
#4. You can't avoid pain in life. It's how you handle pain, that's what defines you.
Marc Maron
#5. 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.
Marc Maron
#6. 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.
Marc Maron
#7. You hope to see an arc of growth in your ability to become a character on television.
Marc Maron
#8. Show business is one of the few businesses that the devil will actually agree to own just a portion of your soul because he knows if you have a performer's ego you were probably working for him all along.
Marc Maron
#9. 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.
Marc Maron
#10. 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.
Marc Maron
#11. 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?'
Marc Maron
#12. What appealed to me was the intimacy of the medium, the fact that I was doing it from my home, and the fact that I wanted to talk. I was not there to plug things. I don't do a hell of a lot of research. I go on a sort of kindred-spirit bonding that preexists the interview, and just see what unfolds.
Marc Maron
#13. The way I figure it, if you can't tell I'm high by looking at me, I win.
Marc Maron
#14. 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.'
Marc Maron
#15. Maybe depression is the most reasonable response to all the crap around us. Maybe it's the happy people who need medication.
Marc Maron
#16. I'm proud to be part of a generation where reading is a 'look.'
Marc Maron
#17. I think the reason Jesus is so popular, just on a celebrity level, is that he died at the peak of his career.
Marc Maron
#18. It's amazing how much you can rationalize when you're on drugs. I could actually say to myself, Look, I'm only doing blow Wednesday through Saturday.
Marc Maron
#19. We need the children of Indonesia and the Philippines to manufacture our freedom of choice.
Marc Maron
#20. 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!"
Marc Maron
#21. 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.
Marc Maron
#22. 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.
Marc Maron
#23. I don't care what anybody says, I think that George Bush is absolutely the right president to oversea the end of the world.
Marc Maron
#24. Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.
Marc Maron
#25. I find that if I don't do interviews, I get a little squirrely. I think that when you engage with someone else, or when you engage in something you're passionate about, you're sort of out of your own head.
Marc Maron
#26. I sort of get tired of myself sometimes. When you're busy, your life becomes relatively small. But I never get tired of talking to other people.
Marc Maron
#27. I didn't know what to do. I'm in love with this woman, I'm married to this other woman, and I'm in trouble, so I call my two friends. That's all I need, two. I need the main guy and the guy I go to when I drain the main guy.
Marc Maron
#28. When you're a kid, you always feel you have this weird kindred-spirit thing with other Jews, until you get older and you realize it's just middle-class bourgeois Jews that sort of fit a template that your family fits into one way or another.
Marc Maron
#29. 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?
Marc Maron
#30. 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.
Marc Maron
#31. I don't make a list of questions. Ever. I think a lot of my interviews are driven by my need to feel connection.
Marc Maron
#32. 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.
Marc Maron
#33. I'm sad to see the passing of the great drug warriors. I certainly did my part in that battle and I don't regret any of it.
Marc Maron
#34. 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.
Marc Maron
#35. I'm not fundamentally a writer. I know writers, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. It bothers me that no matter how well I do it, it's not really my format.
Marc Maron
#36. When you're young you really think you're angry for reasons and causes. As you get older, you realize you might just be angry.
Marc Maron
#37. 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.
Marc Maron
#38. In our interview, Conan said something about the secret of his success: "Get yourself in a situation where you have no choice." And that's what I'm doing, because I had no choice.
Marc Maron
#39. 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.
Marc Maron
#40. I didn't really want to kill myself, it just made me feel better to know I could if I wanted to.
Marc Maron
#41. 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.
Marc Maron
#42. 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.
Marc Maron
#43. 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.
Marc Maron
#44. 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.'
Marc Maron
#45. 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.
Marc Maron
#46. Get yourself in a situation where you have no choice.
Marc Maron
#47. There is a weird truth to the idea that if you really don't care, things will generally go your way. If you're really invested and emotionally attached, things will get away from you or at least get chaotic and scary.
Marc Maron
#48. 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."
Marc Maron
#49. There's nothing more horrifying than the possibility or the idea that you will just fade away into obscurity.
Marc Maron
#50. 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.'
Marc Maron
#51. 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.
Marc Maron
#52. But then again, what do I know. I project. Then I judge.
Marc Maron
#53. Because we're comics and we pass each other on campus, we know of each other, and a lot of the time there's a mutual respect there.
Marc Maron
#54. 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.
Marc Maron
#55. I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.
Marc Maron
#56. 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.
Marc Maron
#57. 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.
Marc Maron
#58. It's great to have people come out. I do worry, though. They know me very intimately, in a way, if they listen to my show; they know a lot about me.
Marc Maron
#59. 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.
Marc Maron
#60. The demand for standup in the eighties was created by how easy it was to exploit 'comedians' and create very cheap television programming.
Marc Maron
#61. When you actually meet the devil and he offers you a deal most artists eventually negotiate.
Marc Maron
#62. 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.
Marc Maron
#63. I was with her for about six years before I asked her to marry me, which only means one thing: I shouldn't have done it! If you wait six years to get engaged, you are on the fence.
Marc Maron
#64. I'm not for everyone. I'm barely for me.
Marc Maron
#65. I need to complicate everything to protect myself from success and to remain complicated and overwhelmed. I
Marc Maron
#66. In the sixties and seventies you could probably name all the great comics. It was still special.
Marc Maron
#67. Some people don't even realize they're bitter. If you don't know whether you are or not, here's a quick quiz you can give yourself. If you ever wake up in the morning and the first thing you say is "Oh, fuck, not again," you might be a little bitter.
Marc Maron
#68. 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.
Marc Maron
#69. For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.
Marc Maron
#70. Hopefully standup will become special again.
Marc Maron
#71. I don't know if I am romanticizing, mythologizing, or being nostalgic. I assume all three. That seems to be how the brain breaks things down after a certain age. I
Marc Maron
#72. I was an abusive, selfish, needy, angry asshole.
Now I'm just kind of selfish, a little less angry, occasionally needy, with flights of asshole. I've grown.
Marc Maron
#73. 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.
Marc Maron
#74. 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.
Marc Maron
#75. There's something about cats' self-sufficiency and their seemingly individualistic ways that I find compelling.
Marc Maron
#76. I always thought I was funny, but I was very sensitive, and very provocative just to get a rise out of people.
Marc Maron
#77. The bile makes it better. I am an information wasting machine - 100s of words a day.
Marc Maron
#78. He doesn't have anything like wisdom of age or hindsight. He's a biased historian of self, an emotional revisionist. We all are, for the most part.
Marc Maron
#79. The next evolutionary step is into the screen.
Marc Maron
#80. I look at every book as a self-help book.
Marc Maron
#81. 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.
Marc Maron
#82. The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers.
Marc Maron
#83. 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?
Marc Maron
#84. 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.
Marc Maron
#85. Most of the comics that I talk to I've never talked to for more than ten minutes ever. So 95 percent of the time you're really hearing the first conversation between me and that guy on the podcast.
Marc Maron
#86. In a lot of ways, I'm seeking some sort of peace of mind for myself. I'm a fairly emotionally petty, resentful guy who has an inflated sense of himself, and I needed to take that down a notch.
Marc Maron
#87. 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.
Marc Maron
#88. I guess we can start at the end but it's really the middle. Let's just call it the really bad part. My second wife, Mishna, brought it to my attention that I had an anger problem. She didn't say it like that. What she said was, "I'm leaving." Then she took her vagina and left.
Marc Maron
#89. It always astounds me that over the course of my career, and having lived in four comedy cities - New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles - there's very few people I haven't run into.
Marc Maron
#90. Is it hard to make a living in show business? Yeah.
Marc Maron
#91. How complicated can ice cream flavors be? How much can you put in there? I mean, when the flavor's something like banana ice cream with caramel, fudge chunks, cheddar goldfish and pennies - you've got to draw a line there.
Marc Maron
#92. When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.
Marc Maron
#93. There's a fine line between cultural criticism and bitterness.
Marc Maron
#94. He does have that weird mixture of born again Christian and stupid that some people mistake for courage and focus.
Marc Maron
#95. [ ... ] I'm about to get on a plane here, and I'm packing recovery literature. All I know is I'm going to be the guy reading the book on co-dependency. That's what I know about me.
Marc Maron
#96. It's easy to maintain your integrity when no one is offering to buy it out.
Marc Maron
#97. Faith in the face of disappointment is only enhanced by laughter in the face of pain.
Marc Maron
#98. Art is supposed to punch you in the brain, and it's supposed to stay punched.
Marc Maron
#99. I'm not completely sure we aren't all living in a hallucination now.
Marc Maron
#100. 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.
Marc Maron
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