The Best Quotes from Louis CK Interviews

I find that when people laugh really hard, it's usually because they're connecting and identifying in a way that they hadn't considered. That's my payoff. I'm not interested in other people thinking differently. I don't care. I'm not even educated; it's something that I'm not qualified to do. I'm just like yeast-- I eat sugar and I shit alcohol. And there's a huge culture that goes with that. Alcohol creates massive shifts in world history, and it changes people's lives. People get pregnant because of alcohol. But the yeast doesn't give a fuck. The yeast isn't going, "I really want to help people loosen up and bring passion into Irish people's lives."

The Jackass movies are honestly some of the best movies I've ever seen. I laugh so hard at them. Those guys are geniuses. If they had grown up with a different group of people, they could've been performance artists at Bard College, and people would be writing papers about them. 
 

It's kind of like being on a bus to Pittsburgh and I say, "I wonder what time we're going to get to Pittsburgh?" And everyone's like, "What? Why are you talking about Pittsburgh?" Well, it says it on the f---ing tickets and on the front of the bus. That's where we're going. Aren't you interested that we're all headed there? 

It's like Platoon. You've got all this fucking stuff; you have an impossible amount of shit to carry, and usually, a kid sometimes too. And I see parents all over the place with skinny little ankles and, you know, with no particular features and they just—life's worn them down to a basic like human shape, you know. Their personality and whatever they—the lines in their face and the chiseling is gone. They're just this thing and it's like ant strength, and you just have to, you just have to do it to get through whatever fucking, you know, we've got to get from here to there. And she didn't want to be here any more, and she has to go to the bathroom, and I've got a stroller.

I'd really like to be rid of it. I mean, I have a huge responsibility to everybody that works for me and gives me this job to promote it as much as I can. But if this season launches well and it feels like the show is in good shape, I might shut it down. I'm not motivated to entertain people through Twitter, so just by having Twitter and not saying anything, I make people mad. People write me, and they're like, "Why don't you f---ing entertain me?" Or they go, "Stop promoting yourself and say something funny." But I'm not a Twitterer! It's not my profession. It's not what I do. I just opened a Twitter account to tell people what's going on, and once in a while I get an impulse to say something.

I mean, Gilbert Gottfried, he's been saying a whole lot worse for years than he said on Twitter, and then when he said something on Twitter, he lost his job. He lost his livelihood! You know, it's f---ed up. Twitter is like making a press statement. It's very sober, and it's not funny, and the s--- just comes out very dry ,and people get upset.

That's what happened to Tracy. Tracy made a joke in a comedy club; that's the appropriate place to say terrible things. It's like sending somebody guitar chords and saying, "This is a song I heard. What do you think?" I don't f---ing know! Or strumming G, A, D. That's "Sweet Jane" by the f---ing Velvet Underground. That doesn't sound so good to me. G, A, D. I'm not getting it. And if you happen to be offended by the letters "G, A, D," you're going to be pissed off. And the guy's like, "No, no, you gotta hear the dude playing it and singing it." Oh, I don't know. All I heard was "G, A, D," and I don't like those letters. I was molested by a guy named Gad, so f--- you, you've offended me.

Roles have all changed. There's a lot of fathers who take care of their kids, there's a lot of mothers who have careers. But in culture, those roles are still the same. When I take my kids out for dinner or lunch, people smile at us. A waitress said to my kids the other day, "Isn't that nice that you're getting to have a little lunch with your daddy?" And I was insulted by it, because I'm like, I'm fucking taking them to lunch, and then I'm taking them home, and then I'm feeding them and doing their homework with them and putting them to bed. She's like, Oh, this is special time with daddy. Well, no, this is boring time with daddy, the same as everything.

HBO was asking us why there was no nudity on the show, and what they really meant was, Why wasn’t Pamela Adlon, who played my wife, nude? When I hired Pam, I didn’t tell her she was going to be doing anything like that. It wasn’t supposed to be that kind of show. So I said, “You know what, I’ll do it.” And I did that episode, and they were like, “O.K., we have plenty of nudity, thank you.”

For 10 years, my opening joke was, “I live in New York, and New York is the only city in the world where you actually have to say things like ‘Hey, that’s mine, don’t pee on that.’ ” It wasn’t funny, but it would get a laugh. Putting those words together even now is like putting a dead guy’s body over the skin of my body.

If people end up thinking I’m a pussy, terrific. As long as it’s compelling and they say, “Let’s watch that pussy on TV next week.”