Top 100 Patton Oswalt Quotes
#1. I've always liked and appreciated storytellers like Garry Shandling and Bill Cosby - more long-form comedy. So starting in San Francisco, watching all these great comics - Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle - you get to see them a bunch, and you go, 'Wow, this is where I need to be.'
Al Madrigal
#2. I don't have a massive fan base. I don't have Patton Oswalt numbers, but the fan base I have is incredibly generous, and of the 22,000 people who follow me on Twitter, I think almost all of those people participate.
Greg Behrendt
#3. I love astute observations and really great wordplay. I love the way that Louis C.K. observes life, and I love the way Patton Oswalt talks about it.
Greg Behrendt
#4. I've always hated the term 'alternative'; I only use it because when I say it, people know what I'm talking about. I always thought it was weird when guys like myself or Patton Oswalt or Dana Gould, these older guys, were called 'alternative' comedy.
Brian Posehn
#5. I'm a sucker for Thought Catalog. Shelby Fero is really funny on Twitter. And Patton Oswalt, he's sort of like a Twitter throb.
Addison Timlin
#6. There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It's definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.
Michael Showalter
#7. Having enough money has to go hand in hand with living in a way that you're not being a slave to your possessions.
Patton Oswalt
#8. Somebody is going to find a way digitally that is just as innovative. In the end, the tools can change, but there is always someone who can think of something cool to do.
Patton Oswalt
#9. I have to drink this much to be as unfunny as you.
Patton Oswalt
#10. Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, 'This is where I wanna be.'
Patton Oswalt
#11. I've had some pretty good arguments with people, but I've never regretted it. I've had people come up where it's all emotion and no fact. That's always sad.
Patton Oswalt
#12. In my mind, I was always a comedian who was going to branch into writing.
Patton Oswalt
#13. I really had to imagine the kind of person that I would have been if I had never left my hometown. I don't think I would have been a very pleasant person.
Patton Oswalt
#14. One of my groupies gave me a film that they made, and it ended up being amazing, so I got it shown at South by Southwest. If I can help get their stuff out there, then great.
Patton Oswalt
#15. Knock on wood, my groupies tend to be very artistic, creative people - sometimes way more creative than I am.
Patton Oswalt
#16. If someone like this were to like me, to like my comedy, and to like the way I conduct myself professionally, it would mean that I suck as a person.
Patton Oswalt
#17. Any acting job that I ever got, I always treated it like I was a neophyte; I didn't know what I was doing, and I was going to work just as hard as I do on my stand-up.
Patton Oswalt
#18. Yeah, there were a few years in the early nineties where I really began to hate what was valued as funny and just sort of what was valued in stand-up, period.
Patton Oswalt
#19. I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, 'Well, I've had it with humanity.' But I was wrong.
Patton Oswalt
#20. Eight people show up. The emcee is warm, friendly, and about as funny as Shoah. I take the stage to the sound of, my hand to God, one person clapping once and only once, and then I start into my act.
Patton Oswalt
#21. I never said that movies were struggling behind TV. I'm just saying that movies have a better creative cache.
Patton Oswalt
#22. To get asked to do stuff like 'United States Of Tara' and 'Caprica' is terrific. I can't complain.
Patton Oswalt
#24. Based on my own experience, when you're going through adolescence you don't know how the world works. You can't set a story in the world you live in because you don't know what a utility bill is, or how to budget your paycheck.
Patton Oswalt
#25. It's the method of consumption, not what's on the plate.
Patton Oswalt
#26. He smelled like carpeting, Scotch tape, and steak sauce.
Patton Oswalt
#27. There's nothing wrong with doing comedies, and I'm not against comedies, either, but I always want to do stuff that keeps me off my guard and gets me out of my comfort zone.
Patton Oswalt
#28. I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.
Patton Oswalt
#29. The idea of, 'The journey is the destination' is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a 'More Like This' link on the internet.
Patton Oswalt
#30. If Kevin James or Paul Giamatti drop weight, I'm done. I don't want to be the last pudge out there.
Patton Oswalt
#31. I think right now is the best time for stand-up, ever. I sincerely do.
Patton Oswalt
#32. Cheap liquor is a magic potion that can turn you into a puppet cowboy before it kills you.
Patton Oswalt
#33. People will find transformation and transcendence in a McDonald's hash brown if it's all they've got.
Patton Oswalt
#34. I don't want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day.
Patton Oswalt
#35. I want to experience as many different tastes, sights, emotions, conflicts, and cultures as possible, so that I can expand the canvas of my memory and enrich my comedy.
Patton Oswalt
#36. Imitation leads to exhilaration when you follow it back to its source.
Patton Oswalt
#37. ... some of us had built whole careers - pointing out how unfair and whimsical and chaotic the entertainment business was, how it rarely rewarded the truly talented. None of us could see how it never rewarded the inert
Patton Oswalt
#38. George Bush is not stupid. He's evil. OK? There's a huge difference between stupid and evil.
Patton Oswalt
#39. As much as I know people love the method and what you can draw out of yourself, a lot of acting is very imaginative.
Patton Oswalt
#40. Hobos' (a slang term that combines the words 'hope' and 'bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse')
Patton Oswalt
#41. If you actually do cold readings, it's very close to how people actually talk, because you're experiencing these thoughts anew every moment, and trying to make them come out coherently.
Patton Oswalt
#42. You just do as many shows as you can to hone what it is you're working on.
Patton Oswalt
#43. We need conservatives that can accept gays, and then we need hippies that can shave and bathe.
Patton Oswalt
#45. During the "first Thanksgiving" at Plymouth, Wampanoag Indians - including a Patuxet Indian named Squanto - helped teach Pilgrims how to farm, fish, and hunt and shared the bounty of that first feast. A TRADITION THAT CONTINUES TODAY AND JESUS AND 9/11.
Patton Oswalt
#46. I mean, the death in the late eighties and early nineties really shook out a lot of hacks. The pond just sort of dried up for a lot of really bad comedians.
Patton Oswalt
#47. I look pretty nondescript. I don't go out of my way to ... I don't express my personality with my clothes, with my car or my, you know, house. I express with my personality; so as far as what I wear - I don't really care about that.
Patton Oswalt
#49. I love the beginning of Magnolia, the thing about the dealer. That scene is genius. Brilliantly acted.
Patton Oswalt
#50. It wasn't until I went to college and met different people from different areas of life - and then went to San Francisco and met people who really knew who the hell they were - that I kind of caught up in a hurry.
Patton Oswalt
#51. The man is clear in his mind. But his soul is mad.
Patton Oswalt
#52. I fantasize and idealize myself as Bugs Bunny, but I know deep down I'm Daffy Duck.
Patton Oswalt
#53. Even if it's other people, like on MySpace pages, we're just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we're in.
Patton Oswalt
#54. You have to be ruthless with yourself, in terms of being honest about what is working and what is not.
Patton Oswalt
#55. Part of being in your twenties is not knowing an ally when you see one.
Patton Oswalt
#56. My advice to you is be boring, square, asshole parents ... When I have kids, the most recent CD I will own - Phil Collins, No Jacket Required, and I'll rave about it. 'Do you like rock 'n' roll? 'Cause this is rockin' good stuff, kid.'
Patton Oswalt
#57. As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
Patton Oswalt
#58. I have a very tiny house in Burbank. I drive an 8-year-old car. I'm gonna drive it into the ground. I enjoy what I enjoy.
Patton Oswalt
#59. I'm going to continue to try to strike a balance, because I really, really do love doing stand-up, and I don't see why it should affect the acting.
Patton Oswalt
#60. Meal isn't over when I'm full. Meal's over when I hate myself.
Patton Oswalt
#61. Every audience is different, even within the same venue. You have to just make every audience your audience; you can't pre-judge an audience based on the size of the room or the type of room. You've just got to be in the moment and go with it.
Patton Oswalt
#62. Any comedian who tells you how dark and dangerous they are, they're not dark and dangerous.
Patton Oswalt
#63. It's like our country is being run by a bunch of bad alcoholic dads right now.
Patton Oswalt
#64. There's something kind of beautiful about that pure love of things. Like, "I'll show that I love the thing I love by hating everything else."
Patton Oswalt
#65. Its gaze unlocked a room in my nightmares which should have remained closed.
Patton Oswalt
#66. I suspected, around the time I graduated college, that we're all versions of targets, fired at by indifferent events. If that was the case, then I wanted to be a moving target.
Patton Oswalt
#67. 90% of every art form is garbage - dance and stand-up, painting and music. Focus on the 10% that's good, suck it up, and drive on.
Patton Oswalt
#68. I don't care how high my shrink increases my Lexapro dosage - I WANT TO BE A ROBOT THAT HELPS WOLVES HAVE SEX. Otherwise my parents threw away the money they spent on my college education.
Patton Oswalt
#69. I'm always trying out new stuff onstage. That's where I do all my writing.
Patton Oswalt
#70. Everything we have today that's cool comes from someone wanting more of something they loved in the past. Action figures, videogames, superhero movies, iPods: All are continuations of a love that wanted more.
Patton Oswalt
#71. I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form.
Patton Oswalt
#72. There is a part of my generation that is not on social media because they have happy lives and they're not trying to connect with anybody. And there are other people who are on social media because they need to connect.
Patton Oswalt
#73. Every zombie story is fundamentally about a breakdown of order, with the infrastructure intact. That infrastructure might be on fire, yes.
Patton Oswalt
#74. If the victories we create in our heads were let loose on reality, the world we know would drown in blazing happiness.
Patton Oswalt
#75. There are times when I have to take, I call it a 'silence bath,' where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.
Patton Oswalt
#76. The truly great actors, like Charlize Theron, are just like, "I'm an actor. For hire. I show up, I do my job." There's no "I'm just waiting for the inspiration." They just do their jobs. They say, "Let's go over the scene a few times and get it."
Patton Oswalt
#77. All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.
Patton Oswalt
#78. I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.
Patton Oswalt
#79. Anything's better than Gen X which is what we got. Thanks Douglas Coupland. We sound like a team of mutant vigalantees with frosted hair and chain wallets. Actually that's not completely horrible.
Patton Oswalt
#80. I visited Surrey in the early fall of 1994, and I would return only if I was tasked to kill a demon to save the world. Maybe not even then. Sorry, Surrey. Sorry, world. Yay, hypothetical demon.
Patton Oswalt
#81. But for the most part, for the majority of a stand-up audience, you better have new stuff they've not heard. And if you put an album out, just consider that material gone. At least that's how I see it.
Patton Oswalt
#82. I wish I had a really cool, esoteric answer, but what the process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.
Patton Oswalt
#83. Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.
Patton Oswalt
#84. I have some shorter stories coming out in other books early next year. I might be pitching a re-vamp of Ghost Rider in the spring. We'll see.
Patton Oswalt
#85. I identify [myself] as a stand-up first. Even though lately there's been an explosion of acting on my schedule.
Patton Oswalt
#86. Does anyone act more like an overserious senior citizen with time running out on their chance for immortality than someone in their twenties?
Patton Oswalt
#87. I'm so beyond genre, drama, comedies, I just want to do really good, interesting projects.
Patton Oswalt
#88. Movies, to him and the majority of the planet, are an enhancement to a life. The way a glass of wine complements a dinner. I'm the other way around. I'm the kind of person who eats a few bites of food so that my stomach can handle the full bottle of wine I'm about to drink.
Patton Oswalt
#89. I'm grateful that I had that uphill battle for 10 years of going onstage and having nobody know who I was, because you have to win them over.
Patton Oswalt
#90. I haven't sworn off Facebook. I'm on Facebook. There's a fan page on Facebook that I will update, but I'm on there myself under a pseudonym, because there were a lot of people able to private-message me on Facebook, and it was getting really weird.
Patton Oswalt
#91. The Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation made a bobble head of me and sent it to my management. No card, nothing.
Patton Oswalt
#92. With acting, you see some of the kids are literally just off the street, untrained, and they are great. And others are off the street, untrained, and kind of horrible.
Patton Oswalt
#93. When you put an album out, you can't do any material from the album if people are paying to see you.
Patton Oswalt
#94. I like to write, I like to do stand-up, I like to act.
Patton Oswalt
#95. I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious.
Patton Oswalt
#96. Is it bad when you refer to all alcohol as "Pain Go Bye-Bye Juice"?
Patton Oswalt
#97. I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything.
Patton Oswalt
#98. Growing up, there are always those kids who are only happy when they are making someone else upset. That is unfortunately just how some people are. And their parents were fine. Some people are just born with bad wiring.
Patton Oswalt
#99. You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.
Patton Oswalt
#100. I've been very lucky in my life in terms of people who are able to tolerate me.
Patton Oswalt
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