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All the truly great stand-ups say, I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work. To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.

Patton Oswalt

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Patton Oswalt
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: January 27
Actor
Comedian
Film Actor
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Producer
Voice Actor
Writer
Portsmouth
Virginia
Patton Peter Oswalt
Patton P. Oswalt
Work
Truly
Inspiration
Stand
Happen
Happens
Ends
Surest
Great
Onstage
Thing
Jokes

More quotes by Patton Oswalt

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Knowing comedy is knowing human nature.
Patton Oswalt
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I'm going to continue to try to strike a balance, because I really, really do love doing stand-up, and I don't see why it should affect the acting. And again, I'm not going, I've got to become a dramatic actor now. I just want more interesting jobs. I just want to keep doing stuff that's different.
Patton Oswalt
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I don't want to get into extended conversations with people on MySpace, because there are friends I have extended conversations with every day.
Patton Oswalt
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If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home.
Patton Oswalt
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This sounds like a brag, but I know how to make good fried rice. I learned in college. There are two secrets - take the rice after you cook it and let it get cold in the fridge. Then cook the egg like you're making a fried egg and just before it's done, dump the rice and veg on it and swirl it around.
Patton Oswalt
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The process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.
Patton Oswalt
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Every zombie story is fundamentally about a breakdown of order, with the infrastructure intact. That infrastructure might be on fire, yes.
Patton Oswalt
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I want to experience as many different tastes, sights, emotions, conflicts, and cultures as possible, so that I can expand the canvas of my memory and enrich my comedy.
Patton Oswalt
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The problem is, and I'm just as guilty of this, a lot of people see their follower count increase and mistake that for friendships. It's great to have followers, especially if you want to sell albums, promote shows, or promote your friends, but you still need to get outside and talk to other human beings.
Patton Oswalt
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If you actually do cold readings, it's very close to how people actually talk, because you're experiencing these thoughts anew every moment, and trying to make them come out coherently.
Patton Oswalt
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Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, This is where I wanna be.
Patton Oswalt
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I mean, the death in the late eighties and early nineties really shook out a lot of hacks. The pond just sort of dried up for a lot of really bad comedians.
Patton Oswalt
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You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.
Patton Oswalt
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Doing 'Young Adult' was really reassuring to me in a lot of ways. It confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about great actors.
Patton Oswalt
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I hate all sidekicks.
Patton Oswalt
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I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious.
Patton Oswalt
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I've had some pretty good arguments with people, but I've never regretted it. I've had people come up where it's all emotion and no fact. That's always sad.
Patton Oswalt
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The truly great actors, like Charlize Theron, are just like, I'm an actor. For hire. I show up, I do my job. There's no I'm just waiting for the inspiration. They just do their jobs. They say, Let's go over the scene a few times and get it.
Patton Oswalt
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What I'm realizing as I get older is that a movie's mainstream success is just as unpredictable as a movie's cult success. Plenty of movies that are truly odd and deserve cults, don't have cults. It's just as much of a crapshoot to be a cult hit as it is to be a mainstream success. Isn't that weird?
Patton Oswalt
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I've hung out in the writer's room a few times, but the fact is we've got such a good writing staff, I don't want to get my peanut butter fingerprints on anything.
Patton Oswalt