Richard Lewis Quotes

I was depressed as a child. I found it hard to make friends. My favourite thing was locking myself in the bathroom and practising comedy routines.

I've been told that I'm incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn't function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me.

People are learning to feel more comfortable hearing one another's dreams. It used to be that if you told a dream in public, someone had to make a joke to relieve the tension introduced by that alternative reality.

I'd just like to be able to walk outside as everyone does and enjoy time with my friends, not feel bad for not wanting to take a picture.

I was very independent growing up, but there were things that were bothering me that I never told anybody. I would talk to our animals at home.

I wrote the song 'Angels Standing By'... to try and soothe myself - rock myself to sleep, basically - because I was so scared and stressed.

It's not hard for me to be funny in front of people, but most of that is just horrified nerves taking the form of what makes people laugh, and afterwards I'd always feel dreadfully depressed, kind of self-induced bi-polar disorder.

As far as humor goes, I've always been a very insecure person and I've always wanted to be liked.

When I was coming out of depression, I made one random video. It wasn't funny or anything, but just the idea that people I didn't know were watching it made me feel less alone than I'd felt in a long time.

So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so.

Because I am basically so insecure and anxious and afraid, I never, ever in my life learned to reach out for help, ever.

Share shame so you are not left alone with it. If you can't find another person, get a journal. I didn't say make a video on Snapchat. It's for you, not anyone else.

I was afraid people wouldn't take me seriously, or would stop respecting me, if I talked about how bad I was feeling. The only people I talked openly about it with was my business partner, Dave Jilk, and my girlfriend - now wife - Amy Batchelor. They were amazingly supportive, but even then, I was deeply ashamed about my weaknesses.

I felt like I couldn't fully be myself and accepted in my family, so I would lock myself in my room on a Saturday night and watch 'Saturday Night Live,' and that was, like, the best thing that ever happened to me.

It can feel like your whole world is caving in on you, and if you don't speak about it, it gets worse. You have to talk about your problems.

Some of my closest friends know that when I worry about something or when I'm upset, I close myself off and stay in my room. I watch movies and I don't get out of bed.

It's OK to not be OK.

I think sometimes it's only by talking about what's really going on that you can make it less scary.

I wasn't thriving socially, so I stayed in my room and played guitar all the time.

Some friends don't understand this. They don't understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you're wonderful just the way you are. They don't understand that I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.

At my lowest moments, I think of people who come to shows. I still get very sad and sometimes I feel like I have no friends, but when that happens now, I'll think of people whose names or faces I don't know - they're my friends and they love me. I've got them. It really does save me. I still feel awkward, but that's the one thing I can grab onto at my lowest points.

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me and they're saying, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm here, come with me to the institute.

Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.

Society is no comfort, to one not sociable.

Prayers out of, very often, not the most religious part of me, but the most anxious part of me, the most desperately loving, fearing part of me.