I do some compassionate mindfulness every day. It’s like a Buddhist thing. I tell myself that I’m doing a good job, that kind of thing. It makes me feel better.
As far as I can tell, comedians are pretty serious people, and that’s why they make fun of things all of the time.
I was raised in Duluth, Minnesota, where you never say that you’re cold, or that you’re suffering, and you listen politely to people, even if you disagree with them completely. Then you say passive-aggressive things later.
Schizophrenia is hearing voices, not doing voices.
I’m sort of shy, and Twitter feels like chatting all day with a group. I like to follow people. I’m following Joel Osteen, Steve Martin, and an anonymous purple egg – just to see where they go with it.
I think I, like a lot of people, have that type of brain where I find it interesting or fulfilling to worry about something.
It’s always the compliments from people you love that mean so much.
My mom is very structured. She gets up, she does her prayers, and she eats her oatmeal with blueberries and Greek yogurt, and she has her prayer list, and she doesn’t worry too much about things.
I’ve learned from my pets that it’s okay to sit around, and people don’t love you any less if you sit around all the time. In fact they might love you more, ‘cos they always know where you’re always going to be: you’re always going to be laying in bed.
I have received more fulfillment and adulation than I would ever know what to do with in terms of show business.
Some of my friends and family have tried to challenge me to do jokes that aren’t as self-deprecating, where I genuinely express my own opinion in my own voice.
I’d like to create a lovable character for schizophrenia; it doesn’t have a celebrity spokesperson because by the time somebody’s schizophrenic they’ve lost all their teeth.
I have a hard time with interviews, because I’d rather hear about the interviewer.
I love festivals because they seem like more of an artsy, supportive attitude – which benefits a more theatrical performer sometimes with having theater and other non-club venues, as well as the audience being filled with other artists. It’s nice to be with other comics, as usually at other road gigs, I’m solo for the most part.
My mom always does this thing where, the closer I get to home, the more she calls. ‘Hey, listen, how’s your plane? Did you land? Are you landing? Sweetie. Listen. We want to… ‘ The anxiety amps up exponentially as I get closer, and then I can’t get out fast enough.
Get out of your house and go see some live performance, for God’s sake. There are people creating things just outside your window.
I am a wild orchid of comedy, so I can only do well under specific conditions… There are people who I think can do any room, and do stadiums and thousand-seat theaters, and then there are people like me who just perform for my parents.
In L.A., a lot of comics live here, but we don’t get to spend that much time together because we’ve got to drive 45 minutes home, or do another set. So in San Francisco we can hang out, go for dinner – the community aspect of it is really lovely, as well as seeing people’s shows that you don’t normally get to see a longer version of.
People get really irritated by mental illness.
I think the Internet has made it easier for people to connect with things that they really like, as well as provide a more personal experience, of ‘I found this!’ and then you can pass it to friends.
I never really thought of myself as depressed so much as paralyzed by hope.
In my stand up, I think I try to be less energetic because I feel embarrassed about how much enthusiasm I have. There’s something about acting like I don’t care, or if I act like I haven’t spent enough time on it, it seems to go better. If I act like I’m really trying to sell it, it doesn’t go as well.
I express things through characters because I have a fear that my own voice is irritating because that’s been said to me.
I think taking vacations and turning off the phone and only doing emails or social media for a specific short amount of time helps with work/life balance. If I’m checking it all day I start to feel cuckoo-bird. So I just do it once or twice a day instead of a thousand. And then remembering that it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.
I get sort of short with people and start grumbling and clearing my throat – in honor of my father – when I’m impatient. It’s very charming.