Quotes & Jokes by Louis C. K. / page 14
Nice to be here. I had a good day today I went to a movie. Before the movie now they show you that presentation where they explain that you shouldn't download movies on the Internet because you're hurting all the people that work on them. They need to feed their families so you shouldn't download the movies. And I saw this and I thought, "Wow, I had no idea. I didn't know you could download movies on the Internet... I don't care about those people."
Sometimes I just want to tell a story regardless of whether it fits what the show is saying. I’ve been in a lot of writing rooms where somebody says an idea and everyone’s dying, like laughing so they’re delirious. It’s like a black hole in a good way, everything starts to fall into it, you know what I mean.
Well, I think "likability" is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.
Everybody is different. Some comedy is more musical like Steven Wright. His is a pillar of comedy to me. He invented a whole form and all his jokes are poems. So it's different. I wanted to do it like George Carlin. Now I do it like me.
You have to be really tenacious. You have to keep at it. There are many roads to get there. If you can get yourself into Harvard, that’s a good way to go, because every Harvard graduating class, the agencies come trolling around and they’ll look for you. So if you go to Harvard, you’ll get found there.
It’s been a very old thing for people to gather together and laugh at stuff. The first comedian in America really was Abraham Lincoln. He used to go to a pub near where he lived and stand in front of the fire and he packed the place every night and he would just talk and bust everybody in their guts. He was just a hilarious speaker and that’s what he did.
There’s a need to perfect things in a writers’ room, and that can take a lot of fun out of a show sometimes. It’s a struggle. It depends on your personality. Some people love working with a writing staff. I had a great writing staff on Lucky Louie, but it sometimes felt like Congress or something.
Whenever I've encountered a Christian saying, 'Why don't you stop talking like that so I can hear you?' I think, 'Well you're the one putting the earmuffs on, but I wish you could hear me because I like you.'
Shut up... let me tell you, let me. Every time I look at your face or even remember it, it wrecks me. And the way you are with me and you’re just fun and you shit all over me and you make fun of me and you're real. I don't have enough time in any day to think about you enough... I don't even think about women anymore. I think about you.
I've had, what, two years? Probably five good years. Before that I had twenty years of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All those things. That'll always outweigh the good times.
It's really the kids that do you in. We have two kids. That's fucking stupid. Don't do that.
I just don't trust any of it. Every time I read something about how there's been another ridiculous climb of the Dow Jones, there's a part of me that goes, “This can't be good.” None of this is real money. You know what I mean? It's not like there's actually more of anything. It's just ideas. When people are getting richer and richer but they're not actually producing anything, it can't end well.