Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences.

I have a following, but it's small. I have this level of fame where people spot me in the airport, consistently, but they always think they're the only one who ever has. People will think they win a prize when they recognize me.

Film is so immersive.

Sometimes people say, 'You're the best at digressions.' And that's actually a real compliment to me.

With a monologue, you can be unendingly elliptical.

If I dream that I'm directing, it's not a film, it's like a commercial for cotton candy, and I've got four feet of cotton candy all around me that I've got to break through, like a brick wall or a fortress.

I feel like being a door person was like college in a sense. I could watch comedy on a professional level seven nights a week without paying, and they would pay me a nominal amount of money to be there.

I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college.

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.'

When I moved to New York, I was wide-eyed. I was nice to everyone, which comedians hate.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.'

The economy of film forces you to make choices.

Essentially, retweets are like laughs.

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.'

Every comedian comes to a fork in the road where they have to decide if they're going to make jokes about other people or make jokes about themselves. I chose myself.

I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset.

There's something about small venues that's amazing for developing material. It's almost like you can not only hear people's response, but you can understand it. In bigger venues you lose that, but you gain this sense of camaraderie in the audience.

The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought.

Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.'

Pain is funnier than love.