If I go out and do a set, there's a good chance that I'll watch another comedian. I'll think - not necessarily their words, but oftentimes the message that's behind the words - the sort of belief that their unspokenly advocating, well, sometimes that's offensive.
Science would like to tell us that people laugh because of the benign violation theory, but comedy doesn't have hard rules.
Traffic: Sit there. Sit. Occasionally move your foot from the brake and crawl forward, then put it back. That's all you do for hours. It's very calming.
Religion often is very embarrassing, and I totally get it. So I am sort of sometimes burdened with the fact that I love talking about it with anybody. Not just religious people.
I can't speak for everybody. But I will say that for me, when I've been depressed - and I get depressed. I have irrational bouts of anxiety. I have random FedEx deliveries of despondency. Just like, 'I didn't order this. Oh, well, keep the PJs on, cancel everything you're doing today. It's time to take a sad shower.'
I needed to let go of the idea of a God who was mad at me for feeling how I was feeling. Now, I bask in an understanding of the divine that delights in truth and the complexities of the human experience - even when it's not very 'clean.'
Yeah, I had a talk show canceled. Okay, let's go back to the list of people who had talk shows canceled. Johnny Carson had his first talk show canceled. Jon Stewart. Letterman. Conan O'Brien, if you look at 'The Tonight Show' as a show that got canceled.
Ideally, a good pastor wants to empower a congregation to the point where they don't need him. You want everyone to leave feeling better.
So we have the story of who we are. I'm a man, and I'm a comedian, and I'm a tall man. I have big teeth and all these things, and I like the first two Batman movies, and I don't drink coffee, or whatever it is.
We'd all like to increase pleasure and minimize pain, but the truth is, suffering, even collective suffering that we're going through, is often the earmark that some real change is happening.
Losing your faith is an essential part of having a three-dimensional, vivid, vibrant faith.
Dorks are not exempt from bad behaviour.
There are elements of comedy that can be competitive and back stab-y, but one of the underreported sides is that we love each other and help each other, kind of like a messed up extended family.
The only Batman that doesn't need parodying is Adam West, but everybody else is fair game.
Sometimes I liken the comedian's lifestyle a little bit to a firefighter's in the sense that there's a lot of waiting and a lot of nothingness. And then there are moments of urgent firefighting.
When I got divorced, the first people I called were Nick Kroll and John Mulaney and T. J. Miller - all the pals.
When I was in junior high, I went to a really hippy dippy Quaker school where we called our teachers by their first names and stuff.
The idea of saying 'the handsome Pete Holmes' is preposterous.
Literally, my honeymoon was driving to Chicago.
I used to just want so badly to have afterlife insured and make sure I was going to heaven.
