I always like things that shrink the world for me, that make me feel a strange connection, not just to the person that I'm listening to but to the world.

In an effort to devote more time, energy and focus to fewer projects, I've had to make some tough decisions, and one such decision was 'retiring' from 'Speakeasy.'

Well 'The Pod F. Tompkast,' as much as I love the result of it, was a really labor intensive show. There's a lot of writing, there's a lot of scheduling, there's a lot of recording - it's not a show that we can necessarily do in one day because there are so many moving parts to it.

I consume a lot of podcasts. I'm a voracious podcast consumer.

I like 'Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period' podcast.

I love words, and I love that there's so many words available to make a point and to create a picture.

Just because I have a good vocabulary, I don't think of myself as anachronistic - just because I try not to use the word 'like' every other word.

You know, back when I was a kid who wanted to be in show business, everybody on TV wore nice clothes. They were very glamorous when they would be on the 'Tonight Show.' All the dudes wore suits and ties and that just seemed like real show business to me.

When I started doing stand-up in the late eighties, that was not an uncommon thing, that people dressed for the stage. I've seen that change as time has gone by to where, for me, it's something that people remark on. And that's when I started to really embrace it in a way and get more flamboyant and foppish with the way that I dress.

I just approach everything by just doing the best job I can do and try to be a pleasant person.

I long ago vowed, as Batman did before me, never to make fun of stuff that people couldn't help. Because it's (1) easy and (2) not fair. There are plenty of things that people have complete control over that are worthy of ridicule.

When the task is mocking pop culture, it's easy to make sarcastic comments and consider the job done. After a while, I began to feel like this route was completely pointless. Talking about silly, inconsequential stuff doesn't mean you can't put some effort into it.

On 'Best Week Ever,' I met a few previous 'Idol' winners, and they were the nicest young people you'd ever want to meet. It is a tribute to them that they emerged from 'Idol's' cynicism factory seemingly without mercury poisoning of the soul.

I think you can make jokes about anything. But you have to accept that there will be people who don't like it. And they are completely within their rights, just as you are completely within your rights to say whatever you want to say. They're within their rights to react how they're going to react.

I've said things that, now, I wish I hadn't said because times have changed and like the me of 15-20 years ago made a joke that I wouldn't make today because I - just because I look at the world differently now, you know. And because the world is different now. And, you know, it's all part of a maturation process, I think, for everybody.

The first thing you start with when you're trying to write something funny is it has to - it really has to come to you first. I has to be an idea that you have that first makes you laugh, that strikes you as funny.

I think that we all enjoy silliness to varying degrees but I think everyone can enjoy a relatable thing if it is expressed in a funny way.

We each have our own style but yeah, when you boil it down like there are certain things that human beings just are predisposed to laugh at and we're just kind of all putting our own spin on it.

Puppets can get away with saying things that human beings can't. Because they are cartoonish just to look at, they're not real, you can assign them insane things to feel and vocalize.

There's so much being said about Donald Trump already, all the time, and the more you joke about him, the more you risk making the same jokes other people are making about him.

When you're getting your facts from people, consider the way that they are being given to you.

I have Peter O'Toole's autograph on a first-edition copy of his autobiography that I acquired under false pretenses.

I always liked dressing up. I think, because I always liked performing, I always liked costumes and things like that.

I enjoy very traditional stuff, and I enjoy kind of outlandish stuff, and I just really like clothes. I always have.

For me, writing is just a means to an end. It gives me something to do on stage.

The podcasting world has changed the way I book my shows. I knew that I could announce a gig on a podcast and that people would hear it. People that like what I do would hear, 'Oh, he's in my city.' And that makes it so much easier.

Earwolf had approached me a long time ago, even before I had started the 'Pod F. Tompkast.' I knew that I wanted to do a podcast, and I knew everyone there and that it was something for me to do, but I didn't know quite what I wanted to do yet.

I think, in a way, the stand-up prepped me for the improv, because I do a lot of riffing in my stand-up.

Ice-T is a great sport about people doing impressions of him, apparently, obviously, and so I have no choice but to be a great sport about being pranked by Ice-T.

Dress how you like to dress. Don't worry so much about rules.

I would love to see the Replacements get back together at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina, because I never got to see them live and I love Charleston.

An audience can become a mob very easily.

I have a hernia scar from when I was a kid. I had a hernia when I was like in fourth grade.

It is so easy to avoid getting in a fist fight. If you're at a point where you're squaring up against someone in public, then it's on you. There are so many ways to not get in a fist fight.

I think I've almost killed myself 1,000 times eating some sandwich as fast as I possibly could and almost choking. It's a miracle that I'm still alive.

Overall, I just love performing so much that when I write, I want to write for me. I kind of learned that on 'Mr. Show,' that even in an environment where you can write whatever you want - which is what that environment was - I realized, 'Man, I still want to be the guy out in front.'

I love to do the stream-of-consciousness thing, because it's exciting for me, and I like to think it's exciting for the audience, too.

When I started stand-up, the people I admired most were the people who were the most themselves onstage.

Performing live can be a drag, the process that leads up to the actual performance. It's all the travel, it's working up all the details and everything, which I hate.

We all forget that when a TV network says, 'Look, we're broke,' it means that they're not making as much money as they would like to be making. They're still making millions and millions of dollars - they're just not making billions and billions of dollars.

Everyone is always asking me about clothes.

I got married and we had a relatively simple wedding and there were not a lot of thrills to it.

A struggle in my life is to feel like I'm a good person and to feel like I'm a nice person. I try to be and anytime I fall short of that it feels really bad.

I love The Rock. I never want him to be president.

I seem to be one of those people that's immune to Super Bowl fever. I may be a carrier, but I'm immune to it myself.

The first time I did Cake Boss or Ice-T or Andrew Lloyd Webber was on 'Best Week Ever.'

If written with enough care and thoughtfulness, a joke can make you laugh at a belief you hold dear.

There are absolutely no limits with podcasting because you can do anything you want.

It's great to work with friends. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but everybody goes into it knowing that. Like, 'We might be really good friends, but we might be terrible collaborators.'

I make my money from a lot of different sources, so I'm not depending on any one thing to really pull through.