Paul Reubens Quotations

The public already knows about me more than I ever wanted it to know.

I've always felt like a kid, and I still feel like a kid, and I've never had any problem tapping into my childhood, and my kid side.

I probably have become more infamous from two misdemeanors than probably anyone I could think of.

I think my entire career path was determined for me when I was 6 years old, watching reruns of 'I Love Lucy' on TV and thinking about making people laugh.

The public may think I'm weird. They may think I'm crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That's all fine. As long as one of the things you're not thinking about me is that I'm a pedophile. Because that's not true.

But I don't know. Pee-wee just kind of popped out one day, pretty much fully fleshed-out and fully formed.

I was Pee-wee Herman for so many years that it wasn't really a question that I didn't want to do other things.

The moment that I realized my name was going to be said in the same sentence as children and sex, that's really intense. That's something I knew from that very moment, whatever happens past that point, something's out there in the air that is really bad.

Look at me, I'm getting defensive about something that happened so many years ago, somebody said. I'll have to find out who that was and if he's still alive.

I spent an awful long time 12 years ago thinking to myself, you know, this can't be my final thing. I'm a big believer in the happy ending. I want a Pee-Wee movie to have a happy ending. Pee-Wee gets his bicycle back. I don't know what the ending is to my story. But I think it's going to be a happy one.

I don't really want to direct myself, but I'm certainly torn in that direction.

It's the most natural progression for me to becoming a singing sensation next. And so many people have offered to be on it. Eddie Van Halen... and Prince, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper will probably be a backup trio.

The first time I met Prince he invented me to his birthday party in Minneapolis. It was a costume party and I came as a beatnik - a beret and a charcoal goatee. He was dressed like an executioner. I talked to him for awhile and he didn't know who I was, and when I told him he was real surprised.

I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, "It may appear that I'm going to go haywire, but I'm not." I always map out what I'm going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.

I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn't quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.

I can be on the Tonight Show, but not with Johnny [Carson]. He uses my name in his monologue all the time.

I feel the only way I'm going to be successful in moving on is if I keep a separation.

A large part of the reason I want to be so mysterious is so that I can move on and do something serious at some point in my career X years from now. It might be very difficult otherwise, because I'm... wild

I've always been very interested in ensemble work. One reason why I don't go out and do a stand-up act is that I did it once and I found it unsatisfying. I don't really like being out there by myself. I like reacting with other people.

I can sit in the room with the other writers and just keep saying no until there's something I really like or until I come up with something. In that respect the proportion of what's mine and what's other people's is controlled by me. It isn't even fair to talk about.

I'm the person with the final say on everything. I really love being in that position.

I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.

I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it's so much more real.

Why would I, in a million years, want to do anything even remotely having to do with child molestation on a children's show? See, I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.

It's a lot easier to say you're a comic than a performance artist.

I was looking to be pale, you know, like the kind of person who has that pigment in their skin where no matter what the weather is they have pink cheeks. I had a couple of friends like that. But it was all very instinctive in a way. I never really thought that much about it.

I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it."

The original suit was designed by a guy named Mr. Jay from Hollywood. But nowadays I'm having the suit duplicated. At this point I have about three good suits and about three really raggedy ones.

I'd love to do a talk show. But I'm too busy for it. It's just too much work.

I was always in disguise. I'd wear masks or weird get-ups so you couldn't recognize me. I was always afraid that if somebody caught on that it was me, I'd never work again.

I enjoy getting to be arty and quirky and weird and all the things that I don't have that much choice with. You just sort of use what you got.

We're in a situation now where fewer and fewer small films get made. People want these big giant tentpole sort of things, and I don't know, it's getting harder and harder to make a small movie.

I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.

People read so much into what I do. It's fascinating to me because some of it's probably there, but I haven't thought of it.

Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don't know any jokes to tell. And when I do they're really flat and don't work.

Yeah, this is what I think was a quality of movies, is you're in a group of people. You're sharing something with people. Whether those other people make you laugh more, you're all laughing. You're all happy together. There's something... manmade about that in a way that's - I'm not sure how that manifests itself in nature, but culturally we've set that up when we invented theater and the movies and all that stuff.

I'd love to direct, and I think I'd be a great director, but... I've been approved by the studio to direct, which I think is a cool jump of faith for them. Or proof that they're really stupid. But I don't think so.

I think there's a danger that some people look at the success of my first movie as a fluke. So I want to make sure that my second film is an even bigger success. Then if I direct my third movie and it's terrible, it'll be okay.

I'm fortunately not in a situation where someone owns me.

I have a deal with a company that's going to do cards without the gum. I don't like sugarless gum, and I don't think it's much better for you.

I'm going to try to do as many styles as I can. A salsa number, rock and roll, country.... I've talked to a million people about it. Obviously, I'd love Prince to do it. I'm sure he'll produce the whole album for me.

I don't think Bruce Willis can compete with me. I have a much better voice.

I'd love to work with Francis Ford Coppola. I met Coppola on an airplane.

You'd get on the plane; and every single person is somebody really, really famous. It just killed me. On one flight you'd have Linda Gray, O.J. Simpson, Robert De Niro, Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds... and Francis Ford Coppola.

I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!

There were just things in Disney movies that probably were too scary for kids.

I was looking for a last name that was a first name. Growing up, I knew a kid who was the most obnoxious kid I ever knew, and his last name was Herman.

I'm right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn't have been me.

I call it... the hot dog tree, because... it's a hot dog tree.

In my experience I haven't met too many uptight black people. I'm sure they're out there. Like I'm some big authority and I've lived in the inner city and ghetto.

There were nude pictures... a lot of it is erotic or sexual. But I don't view my collection as dirty in any way. I view it as art.

I would love to be in Kansas.

There are things about me you wouldn't understand, things you couldn't understand, things you shouldn't understand.

I've been super lucky in that I've either been in or helped create situations where I do what I want. I'm super lucky. I get to do what I want and create art and make people laugh, and it's really fun.

I'm just trying to illustrate that it's okay to be different — not that it's good, not that it's bad, but that it's all right. I'm trying to tell kids to have a good time and to encourage them to be creative and to question things,

When I was about five my dad built a stage for me in our basement. A full stage, with a curtain, a backdrop and a dressing room. There were three colored spotlights - a red one, a white one, and a blue one. Blue was for nighttime scenes, and red was for when we were in hell. If the neighborhood kids wanted to use the stage, they had to incorporate me into the play.

I know you are, but what am I?