Chris Gethard Quotes

Any notable moments spent on a subway usually do nothing more than expose human awfulness at its most pronounced.

If you are dating someone in New York City, and they invite you over to watch a movie, they don’t really want to watch a movie.

By August of 2003, I had graduated from Rutgers, gone through a stretch of living at my parents‘ house, and wound up sharing an apartment with a college friend of mine in Montclair, New Jersey.

The whole romanticized ‘sad clown‘ thing, we gotta get rid of that. That has to go! That’s just getting sick people to voluntarily stay sicker and sadder than they have to be.

I didn’t like who I was. I spent a lot of my life regretting who I was, which is a sad thing to say.

I’m a pescatarian.

I remember the people who mentored me, and I just love being able to do that for other people.

I grew up a loser, and I always felt like one, but I turned out pretty okay. I may be living proof that you can spend your whole life feeling like you’re falling down a set of steps and still maybe land on your feet at the bottom.

I think one of the things about listening is that it’s always at its most powerful when it’s present, when it’s right here, when it’s right now. And that’s a lesson about improv that I think just made me a much more social person.

‘What if?’ is just about the worst question I can ask myself, and I want to avoid it at all costs for the rest of my life.

In 2002, I was taking an improv class because, as a white male with glasses who was born between 1978 and 1994, it’s legally required that I take at least one improv class in my life.

I think there’s too many gay jokes in comedy and not enough honest explorations of sexuality.

The street I lived on for the first handful of years of my life was lined with modest, lower-middle-class houses with small front yards and cracked driveways – your typical North Jersey neighborhood, with all the odd hidden darkness that that implies.

I had bedbugs in 2005. I felt like a leper. Worse than a leper. At least lepers had a colony they could go and live in with other people who empathized. I instead had friends stand up from tables and walk out of restaurants when I told them I had bedbugs, because they were afraid I’d transfer the bugs to them.

My sadness compels me to hide it so that people won‘t judge me. Seeking help would have blown my cover. Meanwhile, my mania convinces me that it’s making me fun so I’ll want to dive further into it. Seeking help would’ve ruined that good time.

Part of North Jersey life is that everyone is obsessed with being tough all the time.

Getting help for my issues was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, because when I get dangerously sad or manic, those feelings seek to perpetuate themselves.

Anyone who lives in N.Y.C. will tell you that getting into a confrontation on a city street is a complete nightmare 100 percent of the time.

When people ask me, ‘Why don’t you drink?’ I usually smile and say ‘Because I’m not good at it.’

Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that shows you civilization up close.

Sometimes we get bored and want to shake up our format. It’s a luxury we have on public access – no one cares about us. It literally doesn’t matter if we fail, so sometimes we try to go really big and out of the box.

When I was growing up, I think I was expected to be seen and not heard. You’re this little, nerdy kid; no one wants to hear about how sad you are. Nobody wants to hear that you feel lonely.

I have no desire to get on a soapbox or be preachy. I don’t think comedy needs to be ‘brave‘ or ‘important.’

When my TV show was in production, dozens of women asked me out on Facebook. Some were shy about it; some were blatant. Some I knew, some were total strangers. But they went for it.

Cops are everywhere in New York City. Cars drive by every few minutes. Uniforms stand nonchalantly at street corners.

Creativity saved me.

Shows are my saving grace. In between actual jobs, the only thing that keeps me sane is the knowledge that I can go up on stages.

I moved to Queens from New Jersey in 2004 and have continued to stick with New York to such a degree that when people ask me to explain it, I’m sometimes unable to provide an answer.

I very classically would go into manic phases, which were as dangerous, if not more so, than the depressed phases, and I think I’d come up with the best ideas I ever had, and then the next day, I’d look at them and be like, ‘This is nonsense,’ because it was born out of a manic episode. What a waste of time.

I classify myself as a comedian, but I’m one of those comedians who also acts so that I can split the difference and feel insecure about both.

I can legitimately say without being arrogant that there’s probably a stretch where I was one of the better teachers of improv in the country.

To a crowd that loves improv, Robin Williams is like Chuck Berry.

I think I’m a very notoriously positive comic.

I think Carmen Christopher is going to be massively huge. He’s just too funny. He’s got funny in his bones, and he wants to conquer every room.

I’m not exactly Don Draper when it comes to physical attractiveness.

There are certain fundamental things that scream, ‘I just moved to New York.’ Things like eating cheesecake at Junior‘s or heading out to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone.

I just really remember the feeling of being a younger comedian who was kind of an outlier for being experimental and weird and how that could feel lonely or hopeless.

The one-word story about why I have a chip on my shoulder is ‘bullying.’

New Yorkers will be rude, but at least they do so out of the rationale that everyone around them is always slowing them down. Los Angeles, I learned, is a city full of people who have the personality of the coolest pretty boy from your eighth-grade class.

If I pretended to be confident all the time, that would just be a lie.

The stereotype of New Yorkers is that we’re people who avoid warm human interaction, we’re always in too much of a rush to enjoy simple things, and that we’re just generally rude.

I think comics do need permission to fail. I think comics do need permission to go up and try stuff.

I think there’s enough TV that makes people feel dumb out there.

I’ve seen situations where I think comics are really unrealistic about what creative expression and what the artistic freedom, what that entails.

I think, in my own life, I’m pretty political. I think I have some very strong ideals, and I struggle a lot with it. I struggle a lot with feeling like, ‘I have a platform; should I be saying more?’

In late 2004, I left my much-maligned home state of New Jersey for the supposedly greener pastures of Astoria, Queens. I’d finally be in the mix, living off the subway line, able to go from audition to audition during the day and from late night show to late night show in the wee hours of the morning.

I think so often about how, when I was starting out at UCB, Conan O’Brien was in town, and on his show back then, they sometimes did character bits, and I started getting paid to dress up as a page or a Dutch boy on his show.

Maria Bamford is someone who’s really inspired me in a big way.

I don’t think I’m ugly per se, but on bad days, I have been told that I look like the monster from ‘The Hills Have Eyes.’ That was extremely confidence-shattering, so I try to take care of myself.

The UCB has long been known as a hub of the best comedy in New York City, but it’s never been the most well organized or cared for place in the world.

Everyone likes to laugh. Everyone likes to dance along to some music.

The bad you see in N.Y.C. is troubling to know when it rears its ugly head.

Cops in New York City don’t have the best reputation. It’s a fast-paced city, and they deal with a lot, and many people have seen lots of cops interact with the public utilizing what can be gently called ‘not the best customer service.’

I always think all the other comedians in New York hate me – I’m just convinced that they all dislike me – when, generally, I think I’m a pretty well-respected guy.

No aspect of my brief and mild fame actually made me happier.

I get to do comedy for a living.

What all my favorite comedians have in common is extraordinary honesty.

Bedbugs have never been cool, and bedbugs will never be cool.

I will say I miss teaching improv way more than I miss performing improv.

I do know I’ve lived through a bunch of things that people would maybe prefer I keep behind closed doors.

I’ve said some things on stage where the crowd was like, ‘Whoa, that’s bad’ – and I never say it again because that’s the feedback I get.

Bits are fake conversations comedians have because they are uncomfortable being vulnerable with other human beings in any way.

As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I’ve done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.

I think the key to improv is always listening. It’s embracing. It’s positivity. It’s hearing things and not shutting them down.

As far as comedy goes, I’m endlessly inspired by Jo Firestone.

No one in New York hangs out in their apartments.

I’m a dummy from New Jersey.

Sometimes I get gigs in weird, artsy places because weird, artsy people embraced my public-access show, which I could only have done in the way I did in New York.

As a largely unsuccessful comedian, I’ve become someone that younger people sometimes find and ask for advice, which I’m happy to give, even though it makes me feel old.

I know there are many things California can offer – personally, professionally, meteorologically – that New York can’t. It sounds awesome.