Patton Oswalt Quotes

When I started doing my act, I wasn't married and didn't have kids. I was probably 29 years old. Some people say that's not a kid, but when you're 50, and you look back to when you were 30, you were a kid. You look back on your 30s and think, "I was an idiot!" But I would just do things then I thought were funny. I couldn't have cared less who thought anything about it.

I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.

For about three years I was performing at one bar in East Los Angeles that was like a mean dive bar. You're in there performing for drunks or bikers, not the most flattering people. I think it helped build my confidence, because you have to get their attention, then make them laugh.

I just think if you're 44 years old and you're not smarter than you were when you were 35 years old or 25 years old, just stay in your room.

I'm such a lucky guy. I've been able to make my own decisions for my own life for the last fifty years...or sixty ... well maybe not sixty. Even though I think I was making my own decisions at the tender age of eight.

Some forty years of experience in my field as a scholar and as a teacher have given me great confidence mixed with greater humility.

I think, cumulatively, I probably have done more photo sessions than just about everyone. Maybe as much as a supermodel. I know they model all the time, but have they done it for 35 years? I don't think so.

I also think within the scene, a specific scene - if I were to play a part that I played 10 years ago now, my interpretation of that scene would be totally different. I would be making different choices. Because I can't somehow subtract all of the experiences that I've had in my life. And it's fascinating to see, because somewhere I'm very reflective in that. You know, I've been playing basically actually close to 40 years old, so I'm somewhere lost in age in this movie. But it's been fascinating to see that I can't subtract that time.

It's not easy being so frightened of everything. And when I think of how much I've improved in the last year, I wonder when I'll ever get finished with making changes and be really grown up.

All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky. That's what I want now, and I think it's what you should want too. But it will be too late soon. We'll become too set to change. If we don't take our chance now, another may never come for either of us.

It's like every time you have one of these, you're sort of - your lease is renewed another five years. And that's kind of great for me 'cause that's all I really want to be doing still at this point, like just making records and getting to work with, like, artists that I think are exciting.

I don't think there is a role that I did twenty years ago that I couldn't do better now.

Actually, I think that turning 29 was more difficult, because once I turned 29, I anticipated 30 for the whole year, so by the time 30 came around it really wasn't that bad.

I would like to think I will be a guy who knows when it's time to stop. I don't want to be a guy who hung on and hung on. I do not have a goal in mind of a year or a statistic.

I'm never overawed by a situation and I think that's because I've always looked several years older than I am. So because people were treating me like I was 40 when I was 29, I've always felt in control of a situation. People used to say, when you're 32, you'll look 32. I'm still waiting for that moment, where my age catches up with my appearance.

I found my mind has changed over the last years. Different vulnerabilities - things that I was never vulnerable to before I am now. And vice-versa. Things I was vulnerable to then are like water off a duck's back. I have a lot less fear. I think I'm getting more determined.

I think a lot of people don't understand that when I sit out it's not because of this year. I'm thinking about long term. I'm thinking about after I'm done with basketball.

A lot of people do things out of fear. A lot of people make choices, based on thinking, they won’t have a career in five years. I know where I am, I know what I do is worth something and does not have an expiration date on it. I’m not making choices — in any capacity of my life, with any kind of endorsement, with any kind of product — out of fear.

It's a joy to be up close to Derek Jacobi's work. Alas, we haven't worked very much, over the years, since we were at university together, but I don't think I've missed many of his great shows and performances.

I don’t think I would ever have been able to be an actress had I not started at nine years old. I would have been the last person to stand up and say, ‘I’d like to star in the play.’

Stand-up is not something that you're good at right away. You have to do it a ton. But, I think I got to shave a year off because I didn't have to get over stage fright.

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

Obviously, I think this [162 games a year four times] caused my early retirement, but I couldn't do it any other way. Just for the record, I never asked for any of the days off in my career.

I like to think I have a good few years left of my career yet, as long as I stay fit and healthy. However, it's always good to have a backup plan, which is why I have been working hard to build my business portfolio outside tennis.

A lot of actors think that the more lines they have the more attention they get. That's bullshit. I make people look at me. I don't have to say a lot of words.