David Cross Quotations

Occasionally I'll watch Fox News for as long as I can tolerate it, or CNN. I'll watch until I get infuriated, but you got to know what they're talking about and what they're not talking about.

Sketches have characters, exits, entrances and are vastly different.

I'm pretty happy. I obviously have complaints about things, but for the most part, I'm on the above-average side of happy people.

The best thing about me is there are no skeletons.

If there are a couple of adjectives people use to describe me, anger is usually in there. I've never taken that as criticism. It's the way I naturally communicate. But I'm not faux-angry, like Lewis Black, or angry like a gun-toting crazy person. I'm just angry in a mild way - it's not like I'm going to do anything about it.

Religion triggers a lot of emotions in me, most of which stem from being raised Jewish in a very Baptist community in the South. I didn't believe any of it from an early age - the clubby quality of whatever religion or church you belonged to, Judaism included. It just struck me as foolish.

I went to a bunch of marches in New York and Washington, and you know I believe in the cause, but to march with those people takes a lot of compromise on my end.

There were a number of referendums in '98 that most of the things I voted for passed. That's very satisfying when you feel that most of the country is in step with your views.

I remember being a kid and the Vietnam War was huge and looking at Watergate.

I think I'd be a really good dad. So perhaps I'm doing society a disservice by not having as many kids as possible.

I think people, for the most part, actually want what they think is best.

I was heavily influenced by Andy Kaufman and Steven Wright.

My biggest problem is retaining the exact information.

In New York there isn't that weird palpable competitive thing where it's friendly but everyone isn't trying to top one another with jokes when you're just hanging around.

I'm of the mindset that most people who have kids are, which is, 'Hey, I want another me. I like me. I'm pretty cool, and I've got really great ideas, and the way I think is the right way to think. Let's put another one of me out there.' So I'll have kids one day.

Besides if people really want to support the troops they would vote democrat.

I hate bumper stickers, you can't sum anything up. All you do is paint yourself in some caricaturist corner.

I love Tinkle, it's really the most fun I've had in years.

Nobody is going to be as bad for free thinking, right-minded individuals than George Bush.

I also try to think of ways to articulate the joke more economically.

I don't think HBO would want to do anything in conjunction with Sub Pop but I never asked either.

I have no hesitation doing children's movies. Zero. And I don't even have kids.

I lived in LA for almost nine years and if I never went back there again it would be fine.

I love doing stuff with Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin. We give the stage to good bands and funny people.

It's not about trying to be funny all the time. It's more of a document that hopefully is funny.

Where my comedy really solidified was when Bush was elected. I couldn't understand how craven and crass he was, and how dumb other people were for electing him.

[If Donald Trump does get elected, I will be] probably Secretary Of Reeducation. Or I don't know. I'll probably end up working in the cafeteria.

There were a handful of shows that were just painful. Not many, but things where I just said going into it, "Why am I here? What am I doing?"

There's the disingenuous duplicitousness, but you can apply that to every politician, really.

I've gotten "condescending" a million times, and that's not good.

I'm directing the Sky show. I'm not going to be in it. I'm just writing and directing it. So that'll satisfy that part of my brain.

I still think that, hopefully, you're not ahead of the jokes, and I think that has value. There is a punchline and it's pointed - and, again, whether you think it's funny or not, that's subjective.

I just did 101 shows in 86 different cities in America and Europe and Canada, and I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say, at the vast majority of shows, they loved it. There were encores, there were standing ovations.

I would say just stop watching me, I guess, at this point. That is what I do, and it probably is, in some way, a bit of a lecture. I can see how that's not something that would be enticing for you to watch in a stand-up hour.

Hopefully people will be reinventing comedy forever and ever. This is just what I do, and it's a type of comedy.

I stand by everything I said. I absolutely can defend my material, and I take issue with people who say, "It's just shock value. It's not even funny." I disagree. There's different ways to be funny and to be a comedian.

I've had plenty of negative reviews. I have my entire life.

I'm a professional comic. Whether you think I'm funny or not, that's, again, subjective.

I do not want to encourage heckling and outbreaks at all.

That's what social media is, that's what Twitter is, that's what Facebook posts are. It's just really anti-intellectual.

I grew up in that minority. I grew up in the South, in Roswell, Georgia, and it was heavily white, Baptist, conservative. And the idea that somebody would come there and say those things that I said created an atmosphere where some people would walk out, and suddenly they weren't in the minority. For an hour and a half, they were the majority. So I would argue that it does need to be said.

Maybe if you live in Brooklyn, you don't need to hear that? But please, trust me, in most of America, they do need to hear it. And they're quite thankful that somebody came out and did it. For an hour and a half in that theater, for once, they're in the majority.

I am truly passionate and concerned about the lack of empathy that people show towards one another.

I think the policies, for the most part, that [Hillary Clinton] will put in place are not going to make positive changes. There'll be more status quo. She'll certainly be good for some groups of people. Whatever.

Ive got a lot of friends there and there is stuff to do but as much as I dislike LA I really like living and working in New York City.

I'm not going to benefit from free college education, but I think all those things are good for the country.

A verbose, prosaic review which mentions whistling winds and the timeless feeling of jade doesn't mean anything to me; I don't need a novella telling me about how an album is like a fine meal.

There's quite an overlap between musicians - especially drummers - who have an affection and a proclivity towards comedy and comedians who fantasize about being in a band. And a lot of comics play instruments.

In my political philosophy - which is definitely more socialist Democrat than centrist politician like Hillary Clinton - I think regulation for banks and those platforms that Bernie Sanders had are good for the whole of America.

I'm going to keep talking about what I think is interesting for my entire career. If you want to hear about how women do a lot of shoe shopping or how being married sucks, go see the guy who does jokes about that. But if you come to see my live show, there's going to be 20 minutes on religion for the rest of my life, probably. If that makes me a caricature, so be it.

There are really funny alternative comics and really funny straight comics who write and perform traditionally.

I'm very vocal about my belief that all religion is garbage. Most of my friends are religious or at least spiritual. These are people I like and I know are intelligent. It's this thing that I carry around. I know I'd be a better person if I was fairer, but it's at the core of who I am and what I believe.

I'm finally going to be able to finally criticize [Hillary Clinton] without being accused of being a sexist - that idea. I'm not a fan, I don't like her, but you can't say anything without being accused of being a sexist pig, which is unfair.

As far as just my stand-up is concerned, I don't care about changing anyone's mind. I'm not making an argument. I'm a guy doing comedy.

I've never written jokes. I mean, I'll write things on a piece of paper and riff on them onstage.

I think I could have a funnier, more economic sets. But that's the comedy I do. And I understand if people aren't interested in it and would rather listen to someone else. But I'll never understand the anger people have toward me.

I'm not a centrist, and there's nothing about me that's centrist. I never have been.

It probably does make it more difficult to enjoy a good laugh at someone who's onstage, seemingly yelling at you. But I'm not yelling at the audience, I'm yelling at the world. It genuinely sucks if people are taking it that way. But I'm not talking to individuals.

I'd like to think that I'm not just making the point that I'm an atheist over and over, but that I explore different facets of religion. There's no way of bringing up religion without sounding like an asshole.

If people disagree with me and want to articulate it, that's not only their right but almost their obligation.

It's easy to see that two people might come up with that same idea.

I was in Antwerp - which, I had about 20 shows left at that point - and a guy said, "That's Dave Attell's." Also, Antwerp was my smallest audience, so the guy was right there. I was like, "What?" He said, "Dave Attell does a bit about, 'Why are there luggage stores in the airport?'" I had never seen that, and I would never ever, ever, ever - please believe me - I would never lift material from somebody ever, and certainly not knowingly.

I'd be curious to find out, but I don't think people in the entertainment industry are proportionally more or less serious politically than anyone in the landscaping industry.

I was born Jewish, but I am an atheist. I dont believe in God.

And it's one more shitty thing to write about somebody, in between getting really, really, really upset at female Ghostbusters and Gamergate, and the things that really matter.

You can't just yell jokes at people.

I'm concerned about organized religion getting away with what it gets away with.

I'll think of the idea and then I'll write something down, then within that there will be a joke or two which is the original thing which I thought was funny.

I'm concerned about how and why there is no gun control.

We should just get somebody from the left and the right and they should all throw bumper stickers at each other and the first one to cover the other one wins.

If you wanna find out 101 things to do with plums, heh, read your in-flight magazine.

Once you get into the [Donald] Trump stuff, you get people going, "I didn't come here to have my political views bashed."

I don't mean this to sound hyperbolic but there are increasingly, albeit really minor, similarities between now and how Germany was lulled into what happened pre-WW2.

Then I will tape the sets and even though I`m not very successful sometimes I will try to cut out the fat and put the jokes closer together.

I read the New York Times, and if I'm in a different city, I'll skim that paper.

I think pornography is the only art form where you can be videotaped on a shaky handy cam sucking off a horse and be considered a star.

It's not that I don't have kids for some personal reason outside of, I just haven't had kids. And I haven't met someone who wanted to, as far as I know. And perhaps I'm attracted to women who aren't ready to make that commitment just yet.

Most people who have kids are, "Hey, I want another me. I like me. I'm pretty cool, and I've got really great ideas, and the way I think is the right way to think. Let's put another one of me out there."

I've never thought of myself as a hoity-toity cultural critic.

Hopefully people are upset for the reason I want them to be upset. Even when I was doing open mics, I've always had people upset. I've never been the consummate crowd-pleaser.

I don't want to do 20 minutes on Donald Trump. I want to do 10 minutes and move on. I wouldn't even do that with a live show, because I don't want it to feel like "An Evening Of Political Comedy."

I just often find myself getting shrill, angry and the jokes get more incredulous.

I recently attended a pro-drug rally... in my basement.

I do lots of other drugs but I smoke pot maybe 5-10 times a year now. I used to smoke it all the time, but I don't, and I haven't for awhile. That's just because it makes me - and I'm not saying this about everybody else - but it makes me kind of dumb and self-conscious.

The underpinning of immigration concerns is xenophobia and racism and nationalism.

When we were on the bus doing the Mr. Show Hooray for America Tour there was a lot of laughter and a lot of pot smoking and a lot of speed metal listening and video game playing. Of course that was all Brian Posehn.

Because I think whenever you sit down with another human being who would absolutely disagree with you on every issue, you learn about them as a person and you relate, in human terms, and it's much more difficult for either side to dismiss out of hand, like that person's a freak, that person's a Nazi.

So all my friends have kids now... which I think is rude.

I think for a lot of people, it's just where their saturation point was. Once you get into the [Donald] Trump stuff and the Republican stuff and the Ayn Rand followers, it doesn't let up for about half an hour. It gets hard and stays hard for a while.

We get to see it! January 1st, 2000! We get to see... all those fundamentalist preachers having to do their backpedaling when the Armageddon doesn't occur.

High Times magazine is a notch intellectually below Highlights for Children. I mean, they're both great to read when you're baked, but come on, ya know...

I have a few business ideas (that I'm going to advertise in High Times, amongst other places), and one of them is a service in which I offer to eat and describe pork to kosher people.

Florida was the low point.The entire state, yep. I'm not sure I'd go back.

'With a telescope, some munchies, and a warm blanket, watch for Halley's comet.' Yeah. I like that. There's no time limit. Just sit there and grow old together.

James Lipton: The most pompous arrogant failure in history.

It's just an easy catchall to describe a style because there are a lot of alternative comics who are completely different from each other.

I'd say 95 percent of my audience was white. They were mostly kind of older hipster folks like myself.

I don't think of my opponents in the sense that I don't think of them consciously, I don't steer it one way or the other.

If you want to reinstate the 14.4 billion dollars that Bush cut out of the veterans program then vote democrat.

I work a lot and I like to get out and work but the work I do to make the other work work I'm not very good at.