Penn Jillette Quotes

I have a hard time watching the shows now. It is like opening up a yearbook when you were in junior high. I think everybody looks back at their photos and cringe, and I get to experience it with everybody else in the world looking at mine.

Any eyes on me - a late-night street sweeper, some dude texting in his parked car, the homeless guy talking to himself - make me feel uncomfortable when I skate. Everyone expects me to do certain things.

Early on, I found the attention completely embarrassing. I'd cringe if I saw my picture on the cover of a magazine.

I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.

Like most people - unless they're very practised at it or have no warm blood at all in their veins - I feel a little apprehensive about the red carpet. It's always a bit bewildering when people are taking pictures and asking questions before the ceremony.

You start noticing that people are noticing how you look, and it is a profoundly alienating experience when it first happens, where you go on TV and you say something about some topic of the day, and on the Internet people are like, 'What was up with that shirt?' 'What was up with your hair?' And you think, 'Oh, that's kind of a bummer.'

Ordinarily during the stage of your life when you're going through your adolescence and you're completely awkward and uncomfortable, the rest of the world isn't watching you with bated breath. It's different when you're an actor and you choose to work your way through that period because it only makes it worse.

It puts you in a kind of a strange situation where everybody is looking at every little thing you do.

I didn't know how to smile for the paparazzi.

Because we put ourselves in a movie or on TV, then it must mean we want to be completely open to the world. Sometimes, people will run up to you as if this is Disneyland and I'm a character. I understand their point of view, but it's difficult to explain how terrified it makes me. I'm so nervous.

When you know that people know who you are, you are always working - and not the work you want to do. You are sort of performing, because you know they are looking - or at least glancing - at you.

You see those magazines, 'Oh, look at so-and-so without makeup, Halle Berry without makeup.' It's so crazy to wake up in the morning and have that thought - 'Do I need to put makeup on? Do I need to do something because I know people are going to know who I am?'

I know if I do something wrong, it's going to be all over the news.

The pressures on younger players now are greater. You've just got to be on your toes all the time with social media and stuff. Now you just go to fill your car up, and there will be somebody wanting to film you trying to do something silly like that.

I'm 87% socially awkward.

If I look at a ref funny, I'm getting a tech. If I say anything wrong on the street, it's on Worldstar or TMZ.

I don't know why people be in the club trying to be so cool. Standing around, trying to be cool. I don't get that. I just think everybody wanna be a star. That's why people don't dance.

I actually feel awkward being at the center of attention.

I can't make eye contact when people sing 'Happy Birthday' to me.

As a result of my husband's position, there is newfound media attention to my every move. I did not imagine this level of scrutiny, but I understand it is now part of my life.

You have not just weekly ratings, but minutes where they say during a show, 'This guy's boring, get him off.' This has produced a thing in our society where we have no shame and the worst offense is to be boring.

I get asked about my weight endlessly. There is no story. It doesn't merit so much talk.

Even if people say you look cool and you did well, it's extremely cringey to watch yourself rocking out. It's like listening to your own voice on an answering machine times a hundred, because you're hearing your voice through a microphone outside of a PA at a hundred decibels.

The media attention - the negative, in particular - it makes you a different person.

I actually find it really hard to deal with people looking up to me or being interested in wanting a picture.