The Infinite Library

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”

“Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”

“Be so good they can't ignore you.”

“I'm enamored with the art world.”

“Tweeting is really only good for one thing - it's just good for tweeting... It is rewarding, because it's just its own reward. It's sort of like heaven.”

“I loved doing 'Pennies from Heaven.' Because you have to understand that I'd been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don't think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.”

“No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.”

“Most comedies are really hard to write, or to watch, because you kind of generally know what's coming.”

“I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.”

“she is nearing forty and not so easily forgiven as when her skin bloomed like roses.”

“I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.”

“I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.”

“I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.”

“I've run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over. I've had that happen to me, and I've seen it happen to other people. I find it fascinating.”

“When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.”

“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

“Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people, working really hard and pleasing people, which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland, I'd do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.”

“I first thought maybe I'd do a banjo presentation record, where I'd play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.”

“I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.”

“Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.”

“I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.”

“When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well.”

“I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that's in my head.”

“Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.”

“I'm enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.”

“Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.”

“Don't have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.”

“You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.”

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

“I think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it's hard to get them out on the air.”

“I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.”

“I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.”

“I love comedy. That's what got me into the arts. I don't even know how to categorize myself anymore.”

“An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.”

“The bluegrass community... can be very strict. I didn't know if I'd be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not, but I think they judge you very fairly... I felt really welcome.”

“Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”

“I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.”

“I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.”

“Anytime you look at anything that's considered artistic, there's a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can't exist without it.”

“I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness.”

“I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.”

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.”

“You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.”

“The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as 'What's that?' There's something very compelling about it to certain people; that's the way I was; that's the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.”

“I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.”

“I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.”

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”