Alienation, I suppose, can't be hackneyed because it will always exist.
I drank the Kool-Aid of being a network star. Once it didn't happen, I realized it wasn't the best version of my comedy.
I love Broadway shows.
Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.
One of my favourite movies is 'Annie Hall' because it's about the silver lining of the break-up.
I think that my regrets mostly have to do with my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. Every once in a while, you get those flashback memories of conversations you had with your exes, and you just, like, wince when you're walking down the street. Something occurs to you, 'Oh, no, I said that.'
I grew up in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts and went to college in Washington D.C.
You don't really see sleepwalking in films that often. It's weird; I feel like in popular culture we have the perception of sitcom, arms-in-front-of-your-body sleepwalking, and then maybe Olive Oil and Popeye when she sleepwalks through the construction site. But it's all very cartoonish, in some cases literally.
I'm a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in 'Once' there are the musicians that hang out together.
The key to eating healthy is not eating any food that has a TV commercial.
As a comedian, you want people to like you. That's part of why you're there in the first place: You have this unquenchable need to be liked, and then when you divert from that and take a chance at doing something that has moments of fierce unlikeability, you can hit some real low points.
Someone gave me a piece of advice once, my first manager Lucien Hold. He said, 'If you do stand-up about your own life, no one can steal it.' I always thought that was the best piece of advice.
I'm incapable of feeling any joy.
Sometimes you'll have a heckler who's actually attempting to be supportive, but you don't realize it. Their way of expressing it is kind of confusing.
The one thing you're most reluctant to tell. That's where the comedy is.
I am intimidating no one in America. No one feels like they are below me in any way. They feel like they are absolutely either at or above my level and 100-percent comfortable talking to me.
I end up talking about really mundane things with my fans, and then they're kind of like, 'This is boring. I want to go talk to somebody else.' I think I bore my fans to death by over-talking to them.
The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd better have something to say.
Jokes are so personal, and they bring us together in so many ways.
Over the years, I managed to develop this comedy career, went from opening act to headliner at comedy clubs, to playing concert halls, and had an off-Broadway show with 'Sleepwalk With Me.'
I gravitated toward stand-up because there's no overhead. I mean, literally, there's no overhead: Often, you're outdoors performing in front of groups of people.
I've become good friends with Lena Dunham, and the thing I had in common with Lena when I was 24 is I was as ambitious as she was. What we don't have in common is that I was not as talented. My voice was not as clearly defined.
I've found, being in Los Angeles, it's like living in a live-action Planet Hollywood.
How many people do you know who have thrown up on the Scrambler or a carnival ride? A lot of people, is the answer.
The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.
The economy of film forces you to make choices.
Creepy people do the things that decent people want to do, but have decided are not a great idea.
I sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that's how people find their favorite bands and comedians.
Starbucks is the last public space with chairs. It's a shower for homeless people. And it's a place you can write all day. The baristas don't glare at you. They don't even look at you.
Nobody knows the life of the working comic.
I always live tweet 'SNL.'
I got out of school in 2000, and I always wanted to be on 'This American Life,' since I first started telling stories. And that, I mean, that show is a little bit of a fortress. It's really hard to get stuff on that show.
What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray.
Once you start writing something obsessively, it's almost like someone has to rip it from your hands in order for you to put it down.
I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody. I'm a comedian and a writer.
I just like, when you look at people who have long careers in film, they're able to make films that are far away from themselves, because they're metaphorical. It creates more opportunities, I think.
I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film.
When I met my wife, I was a working comic, so the first week we went out, she saw me perform, and it was very clear what I do.
Once you know how to make a movie, you can't not make a movie.
Random people, celebrities of note come to your shows over the years, and I've had some really strange ones. Like the guy from Kiss. Gene Simmons has literally been in the audience at my shows, like, four times. I don't know if he knows me; he's just a big fan of comedy.
I would say that I love pizza so much that sometimes I eat pizza while I'm eating pizza. Like, I'm so content with myself with how it's going that I'm like, 'I should do this more,' not realizing that the mouth is full. I'm just cramming pizza into my mouth.
If you're asked something on a movie set and you say 'I don't know,' you lose confidence in every department. What you need to say is 'I'll have that for you in five minutes.'
Sometimes I take this women's exercise class called Core Fusion at a place called Exhale. I shouldn't say it's a women's class. There's maybe two men.
It sounds so nerdy and pathetic, but what I always do on Sunday afternoon is bring my inbox down to zero, which is so sad. But e-mail has become like homework for adults. I'll have 141 messages from people who will be offended if I don't write back.
Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.'
It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa.
I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding.
Sometimes my fans are too nice.
Every sleep doctor I've talked to said it was an urban legend that you shouldn't wake up a sleepwalker. All that will happen is that you will get condescended to.
