ADAM CONOVER

At any point, the sum total of human knowledge is not, 'Here's the world as it is perfectly,' it's, 'Here's the best we know so far and we're always willing to be proven wrong.'

Growing up as a comedian the most influential person on me was Jon Stewart. He showed that comedy could have a real tangible effect on the world. He showed that comedy could move the needle of society and that a comic can do real things and make a real contribution.

I can't think of another place other than TV where a five-person sketch comedy group could make a living.

One of my favorite things about sketch comedy is doing parodies and music videos.

I'm a liberal arts comedian and the definition of liberal arts is all spheres of human knowledge, coexisting, mixing and influencing each other.

I think that veganism is a totally great choice with incredible benefits, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect other people to be vegan or to expect everybody to be vegan. You can proselytize all you want, but being vegan is a pretty intense choice for a lot of people.

I've always been kind of an information sponge.

We've had erratic, weird presidents before. America's still here.

I went to Bard College, which was a really interesting synthesis of a hippie school and a serious academic institution. It was really the perfect spot for me.

I consider myself to be doing comedy in a post-Jon Stewart world to a certain extent.

I eat about two meals a day vegan, is my rule of thumb. When I'm traveling, all bets are off, but I don't cook meat in the house. I rarely cook eggs. I never use milk. But when I go out to eat for a special treat, I'll have some meat. But I know, personally, that's the best I'm ever going to do in my life.

Into the Breach' is a wonderful strategy game where you play that you are trying to stop an alien invasion. But of course, 'Zelda: Breath of the Wild' and 'Super Mario Odyssey' are just two of the most superlative games ever made, and so when I have time to completely lose myself in those, it's really, really a joy.

I want to do stories that are about the bits of cultural furniture that are sitting there that we're like, 'Oh yeah, that's been there for years! What could possibly be weird about it?' And then we're going to lift that piece of furniture and look at all the bugs scurry away.

Comedy has no rules, per se.

It's one thing to make people laugh, but after a certain point, comedy is almost cheap.

Wading River was a gorgeous place to grow up and I feel very lucky there was a wood by our house where I could go explore when I was a kid.

Millennials are always on their phones and it's running their lives, but you know who is also on their phones? Moms and Dads and also some dogs... everyone is on their phone all the time.

In my moments of greatest hubris, I say to myself, 'Yes, you should be trying to change the world.'

It's only when you get towards the top that people start throwing you down a rope. It's like a law of nature, and it makes me think a lot about what my responsibility is to folks who are further down the hole where I was - how I can offer them help and how I can try to help change the structure of American society.

My goal is to be able to speak to everyone in the country and to be able to make everyone in the country think differently about our political system.

I have a lot of family in Marquette. I'm way more familiar with the U.P. than I am with the lower peninsula. I've visited Michigan every couple of years since I was a kid.

Your date of birth is a security point for identity theft.

The direction of the country isn't controlled by one person on top making decisions. It's a mass movement of people making a lot of individual decisions that add up to something broader.

Security theater is the idea of putting on a big show of security in order to make people feel safe. That's why the TSA screens everything and takes your stuff away.

I am not an educator and I'm not a journalist. I am a comedian. But I do truly believe that the point of comedy is to make the world around one better.