Top 100 Michael Ian Black Quotes
#1. When he moves, he gives the impression of somebody leaning into the wind, or charging a hill, as if the world with all of its troubles can be tamed if only enough force and energy are brought to bear.
Michael Ian Black
#2. I am not opposed to religion. Far from it. I'm for anything that gives people peace. That's why I am also for hot tubs and compact discs of whale songs. Anything that soothes the soul is fine by me.
Michael Ian Black
#3. I have a good family and I like to be home with them. The older I get, the lazier I get, and the more content I am to sit at home and eat string cheese.
Michael Ian Black
#5. Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don't ignore that critic but don't give it more attention than it deserves.
Michael Ian Black
#6. If I had three wishes for my country, they would be these: keep fighting, keep moving forward, and don't act like a douchebag.
Michael Ian Black
#7. Spirituality has always felt to me as private as sexuality. We don't go waving our wieners all over the place and we shouldn't wave our gods around either.
Michael Ian Black
#9. Corporations do a lot of things well, but not run nations, for obvious reasons.
Michael Ian Black
#10. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#11. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#12. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#13. Internet fame is like regular fame only without all the annoying 'money' and 'power.'
Michael Ian Black
#14. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#15. I think in doing stand-up there are no rules and there's no architecture.
Michael Ian Black
#16. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#17. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#18. I never really understood what was expected of me as a man, or how I was supposed to interact with women, but worse, with other guys. I did not relate to them.
Michael Ian Black
#19. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#20. I hope you die ...
P.S. If you do die, I'm going to go to the funeral and finger your corpse.
Michael Ian Black
#21. I actually don't know anyone who wants to be famous for fame's sake, at least not anyone I respect. But you need to have a certain amount of power in order to be able to do what you want.
Michael Ian Black
#22. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#23. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#24. I don't watch that much comedy. I think it's professional jealousy. That and a lack of support for my community.
Michael Ian Black
#25. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#26. Marriage felt like a fading American institution, as relevant to me as the Elks Club. Plus, I considered myself punk rock, and punk rockers don't believe in boring societal conventions like marriage. We prefer boring societal conventions like punk rock.
Michael Ian Black
#27. Nothing is more satisfying to me than sitting in a dank room, hunched over a single flickering candle like Ebenezer Scrooge, and watching my ledgers fill themselves with ink.
Michael Ian Black
#28. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#29. Lordy, lordy, lordy do I love money. It is a character flaw, no doubt, one that springs from a panicked childhood in which I always felt as if our family was only a couple missed child support payments from being tossed onto the pitiless streets of our suburban New Jersey town.
Michael Ian Black
#30. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#31. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#32. You can't write a children's book that takes more than five or six minutes to read, because it will drive the parents batty. It has to be compact. Nobody thinks about the parents when they write these stupid books. I could write longer children's books, but it would actually be bad if I did.
Michael Ian Black
#33. I take it for what it is, and sometimes the criticism is actually useful and constructive and actually informs what I do, but most of the time, it's sort of mindless, or they're receiving something on a different frequency than I was sending it.
Michael Ian Black
#34. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#35. If they have to drag some of you fucking fuckers out of here in body bags, I will be so fucking stoked.
Michael Ian Black
#36. 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."
Michael Ian Black
#37. Let me tell you, the life of a C list celebrity is pretty sweet. If I want to go to an Applebee's, all I have to do is, literally, walk in the door. They seat me as soon as the other people ahead of me are seated.
Michael Ian Black
#38. Sometimes the criticism is actually useful and constructive and actually informs what I do, but most of the time, it's sort of mindless, or they're receiving something on a different frequency than I was sending it. They're just not getting what I'm doing, and that's fine.
Michael Ian Black
#39. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#40. When I am at work, that is my time to work. The workspace is not the appropriate arena for us to discuss your problems. When I am there I need to be left undisturbed to check what people are saying about me on Twitter.
Michael Ian Black
#41. I used to need the character but as I've gotten older I need it less and less - I prefer to play some version of myself. To approach any acting job as me just being me.
Michael Ian Black
#42. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#43. At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.
Michael Ian Black
#44. Most of the time, you don't win anything on reality shows. You're booted off, or maybe you win $50,000, or $100,000, which isn't really life-changing. I don't know that it's worth it.
Michael Ian Black
#45. 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."
Michael Ian Black
#46. The characters that I have on Twitter have very little resemblance to me, the person who's writing them.
Michael Ian Black
#47. There's this misconception that comedy and music go together. They don't. Comedians can't compete with rock stars; they're just not on the same level. Rock stars will always be cooler. They will always get more girls.
Michael Ian Black
#49. Best strategy for a first date is to ask her questions. Just keeping asking her questions about herself. Her life, her job, her friends, her taste in movies and music and everything. People mostly just want to talk about themselves, so let her do that.
Michael Ian Black
#50. I'm very introverted, so it requires a huge effort for me to put on a smile and extend a hand and accept compliments. I would much rather be insulted than complimented any day.
Michael Ian Black
#51. The things I care about are the most pedestrian things in the world. I care about good ice cream and being a good dad and a decent husband.
Michael Ian Black
#52. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#54. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#55. People recognize me, but they don't know where from. Today I was in the elevator and somebody asked me if I worked for his company.
Michael Ian Black
#56. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#57. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#58. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#59. You keep your gods in your backyard and I'll keep my lack of God in mine.
Michael Ian Black
#60. Well, I think my stand-up is often kind of visual. Not like Carrot Top visual, but visual.
Michael Ian Black
#61. I imagine there's a level of narcissism that goes into thinking you're enough.
Michael Ian Black
#62. My first real break was when my college sketch troupe, The State, was asked to contribute pieces for a new MTV show called 'You Wrote It, You Watch It.'
Michael Ian Black
#63. You know how Burger King often employs mentally handicapped people to wipe down tables at their restaurants? What those people are to Burger King, paralegals are to lawyers. It's the lowest job you can possibly get and still technically be considered in the legal profession
Michael Ian Black
#64. I don't chase after things, but I put forward the effort and know the rest of it is out of my hands.
Michael Ian Black
#66. Kids love to be silly, they love to laugh, so I think it was natural for my kids to like the sort of books that I write - and it's the only kinds of books I'm capable of writing.
Michael Ian Black
#67. Wish I could, through my own financial prestidigitation, transform a dollar bill into two, or two million. It is an awesome and mysterious skill.
Michael Ian Black
#68. 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?"
Michael Ian Black
#69. I take my coffee the same way I take my women: Strong, black, and proud.
Michael Ian Black
#70. If you get an idea, you might as well stick with it until somebody calls you on it.
Michael Ian Black
#71. My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob.
Michael Ian Black
#72. Part of what's exciting to me about my career is the constant looking forward. Whenever I finish one project, I am looking to what's next.
Michael Ian Black
#73. Her lips remind me of kite strings and I find myself thinking about panda bears. Panda bears do not fly kites, I tell myself.
'I thought you were dead,' she says.
Maybe if you taped a kite to a panda paw and scared the panda so that it started running, the kite might start to lift off.
Michael Ian Black
#74. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#75. Many, many people can write books. I just happen to be one of them.
Michael Ian Black
#76. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#77. So my reaction to hearing this corny-ass, horrible song ["With Arms Wide Open" by Creed] is violent, uncontrollable, sustained weeping.
Michael Ian Black
#78. I feel like my career has been a series of glowing obituaries.
Michael Ian Black
#79. Shuffling really isn't something you should be doing on your deathbed.
Michael Ian Black
#80. Even to me, a sufferer, 'depression' seems like a fetid load of weaselly claptrap, a cheap and easy excuse for not participating in life.
Michael Ian Black
#81. I definitely script things out. I definitely write things down and try to write jokes. Often, they're terrible. I often write terrible, terrible jokes.
Michael Ian Black
#82. With stand-up, you can be as freeform as you want to be. You can say what you want, how you want, at any moment without constraint.
Michael Ian Black
#83. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#84. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#86. All the work that I do, whether or not it ends up being commercially successful or not, feels like the most important thing to me while I'm doing it. I try to take something away from every project, and so they all feel like milestones for one reason or another.
Michael Ian Black
#87. Super excited about things I'm going to do; never excited about things I'm actually doing.
Michael Ian Black
#88. It's such a deliberate thing to sit down and write a tweet. You're putting yourself out there in a very deliberate way, and over however many tweets, you start to create a character for yourself.
Michael Ian Black
#89. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#90. That's been my fear all along. That I'm not enough, and I still don't trust at all that I am.
Michael Ian Black
#92. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#93. If I have any faith at all, I guess that's it. Faith in the small love that keeps our family together.
Michael Ian Black
#94. I don't necessarily self-identify as a writer, 'cause it implies a certain level of intelligence.
Michael Ian Black
#95. 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.
Michael Ian Black
#96. All my friends were girls. Then my mom's strident feminism for years where men were thought of as the enemy, I just didn't know what the right way to be a man was.
Michael Ian Black
#97. Whatever I write I publish. Because that's where the money is.
Michael Ian Black
#98. Whenever anyone asks me if I'm from a TV show, I say yes - no matter whether I've ever been on it. It just makes the conversation that much easier.
Michael Ian Black
#99. Perhaps we will end up one of those sad childless couples who spend all their time sleeping late, buying luxury goods, traveling the world, and enjoying each other's company. That would be terrible.
Michael Ian Black
#100. Separation is the worst. There's no good way to deal with it, other than to get on the phone and do Skype and try to visit.
Michael Ian Black
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