Michael Showalter Quotations

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.

She's sweet and she's nice, she's just not Andie MacDowell. God forbid, you're not Andie MacDowell. You're just a person, ... I'm playing with that whole idea that the characters have these quirks about their personalities that we've been conditioned to believe equal wrongness.

Cats aren't cooperative in the same way that other animals are. You can train a dog to act, but you can't train a cat in the same way.

Baxters overdo it. The Baxter is the guy who's going to take a girl to the best restaurant in town, having no clue if it's appropriate for her. All that matters is, it's the best. Anything recommended as the most romantic place, that's where you'll find the Baxter.

I have a theory. You were supposed to ask her to dance. She was content, not happy. Ultimately the problem is that you're not willing to take risks. You've got to be willing to take risks. Are you going to act or are you just going to sit there and let possibly the biggest decision of your life pass you by?

Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they're salacious and funny and self-reflective.

He'll cook too complicated a dinner, and it backfires. Or, he'll plan the whole night out minute by minute.

I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.

Jeff Van Gundy is a Baxter. Derek Jeter? So not a Baxter. Howard Stern is not a Baxter. And Bernie Kerik is not a Baxter.

Many fans don't have the leisure time to track my every word. They're too busy brainstorming solutions to the economic crisis and winning Pulitzers.

I think comedians see themselves as people among people.

John Roberts is a Baxter. Have you seen his hair? It's parted with a snow shovel!

Michael, David and I get along very well, ... That is why we have been able to stay collaborating for so long. The State was a much more tumultuous collaboration, that was a lot of fighting, and a lot of people needing their way. We had 10 very strong opinions in there, very strong comedic voices in one room is too many cooks.

There are a million subsets. There's a-- hole Boyfriend Baxter - like Drew Barrymore 's old boyfriend in 'The Wedding Singer,'

Every character is likeable and jarring at the same time,

Did you ever wonder about the guy left at the altar?

I've always loved going to see Broadway shows. I've seen 'em all: Rent, Chorus Line, Cats, West Side Story, Guys & Dolls, Wicked, you name it!

I've always balked at anything that feels like a clique, even if it's not always in my best interest to do so. I like each individual, fedora-wearing hipster - it's just the greater gestalt that rubs me the wrong way.

I wanted to do something that wasn't vulgar,

You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly.

There's a Baxter in every single romantic comedy,

Their unifying characteristic is they're not romantic. They have this inability to recognize the simple romantic needs of their counterpart. They just never know the right thing!

I mean, do you really think Paul Krugman is checking his Twitter account every day to read what I write? Of course not. Every other day maybe, but not every day.

I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke - and as I say this, I'm sure I do it - completely at someone else's expense.

I never really loved the acting, and I was never really that good at it, ... I never felt like I was better at this than other people. I started finding that my true passion is writing.

In each case, the minute you see them, you know they're wrong, ... The instant they walk on the screen, they give you some information that immediately makes the audience turn to the person sitting next to them and say, 'He's wrong for her. It'll never work out.'

Clark Kent is a Baxter. Superman is a leading man, but Clark Kent is a Baxter.

He's like the best possible guy to work with. He's improvisational, adaptable, nice - and people love him. It's just been truly amazing watching Peter finally getting his due.

George Pataki is a Baxter, no question. But Mario Cuomo is not a Baxter.

I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.

If your dad is anything like mine, then you have no clue what to buy him for Father's Day. The only Father's Day tradition in my family is the annual conversation he and I have where I say, 'Hey, Dad, what do you want for Father's Day this year?' and he says, 'Nothing.' Then I ask my mom what I should get him and she says, 'He likes sandalwood soap, dangly jewelry and Chanel No. 5 perfume.'

In my perfect world order, it is cold all the time. Everyone wears sweaters and drinks coffee. People don't speak to each other; they read the newspaper. There is no loud music, and cats are in charge.

I tend to a lot of improvisational ranting, and that's fun. For me, stand-up has been, performance-wise, a really good outlet.

For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black's tweets.

I just made a movie. There's a kind of a banter that some people might recognize as being screwball. There are no cell phones, no DVD playersit's set in a timeless Brooklyn. Hopefully, it's a good, old-fashioned movie.

I knew that if I was going to write a book, I was going to have to read one, too.

In real life, comedians aren't funny.

I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.

I like the comedians that go into detail and tell longer stories.

Love is such a confusing word. You think I'm joking but I'm not.

One of the things that is always difficult about a collaboration is that you don't necessarily find the same thing funny. And so the challenge becomes, how do you tell the other person that you don't think something's funny? The best collaborations tend to be when you are willing to be told that. But there's also ego involved, and so there's a lot of frustration in knowing that you're writing something, and the other person, on some level, needs to think that it's funny.

I calculated that if I wrote five pages a day, which seemed very doable, I would have an 1,800-page first draft when the deadline rolled around. Though completely unwritten, I was very impressed with how long my first draft would be.

I'm not sure why I like cats so much. I mean, they're really cute obviously. They are both wild and domestic at the same time.

A lot of my humor centers on the act of telling jokes and I think this can prevent certain audiences from suspending their feeling of disbelief. It might piss a few people off, but I can't help it.

The character of Elliot is one of a polite, chivalrous, modern Jimmy Stuart who you do not see much of in films today,