Quotes & Jokes by Louis C. K. / page 9

Perception is created and twisted so quickly.

Sometimes I try to take a nap before shows. That clears my head.

My last name is Szekely. Sounds like Saykay. When I was a little kid I had an instructor in camp who called me Shnizneckely. He would make fun of my name and it hurt my feelings because I was a little pussy and I cried. He said, 'Well, how do you say it?' I said, Seekay. So he wrote 'C.K' on my jersey and everything. He made my name 'C.K' and I just stuck with it.

Life's too short to be an asshole, as an employer or as an employee.

The earliest stand-up comedy I was aware of was Bill Cosby. I watched Saturday Night Live as soon as I was aware of it, and Monty Python used to be on PBS at weird hours, so I used to try to watch that. And I loved George Carlin on SNL, that was the first stand-up I ever really remember seeing on TV. And then Steve Martin. I guess I was in fifth or sixth grade when Steve Martin showed up, and he was instantly my idol. And Richard Pryor around the same time too, I sort of became aware of him, though I don’t remember the first time I saw him.

It's a positive thing to talk about terrible things and make people laugh about them.

There's a woman I see who's not my therapist, but she's like an old friend who's a therapist in profession. She lets me talk to her like a therapist once in a while, and she does a great thing. Whenever I have a big dilemma, like this is a big problem in my life, she always says, 'Wow, you're going to have to figure that out.'

It's hard to really look at somebody and go: "Hey, maybe something nice will happen." You just don't - I know too much about life to have any optimism, because I know even if it's nice, it's going to lead to shit. I know that if you smile at somebody and they smile back, you've just decided that something shitty is going to happen.

"I'm bored" is a useless thing to say. You live in a great, big, vast world that you've seen none percent of.

Anytime you see a bit where some stranger does something to me, it's me.

Pushing the envelope' sort of implies that you're inside the envelope with everyone else, and you're trying to find the edges on the outsides.

I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at.

Technically, I've learned that having good legs and wind is good for being on stage. You have to be in shape and have endurance.

I don't think it makes any sense to try to get anyone to not talk.

I've tried to do away with lying in my life in the last few years, but it's hard.