Michael Showalter quotes:

For me, Twitter works best as a way of taking pictures of being stuck in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. If people really want to read really funny quips about life, parenting, and pop culture, then by all means read Michael Ian Black's tweets.

I've always loved going to see Broadway shows. I've seen 'em all: Rent, Chorus Line, Cats, West Side Story, Guys & Dolls, Wicked, you name it!

Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they're salacious and funny and self-reflective.

I just made a movie. There's a kind of a banter that some people might recognize as being screwball. There are no cell phones, no DVD playersit's set in a timeless Brooklyn. Hopefully, it's a good, old-fashioned movie.

There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It's definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.

Cats aren't cooperative in the same way that other animals are. You can train a dog to act, but you can't train a cat in the same way.

I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.

You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly.

I've always balked at anything that feels like a clique, even if it's not always in my best interest to do so. I like each individual, fedora-wearing hipster - it's just the greater gestalt that rubs me the wrong way.

I tend to a lot of improvisational ranting, and that's fun. For me, stand-up has been, performance-wise, a really good outlet.

Many fans don't have the leisure time to track my every word. They're too busy brainstorming solutions to the economic crisis and winning Pulitzers.

A lot of my humor centers on the act of telling jokes and I think this can prevent certain audiences from suspending their feeling of disbelief. It might piss a few people off, but I can't help it.

I knew that if I was going to write a book, I was going to have to read one, too.

In my perfect world order, it is cold all the time. Everyone wears sweaters and drinks coffee. People don't speak to each other; they read the newspaper. There is no loud music, and cats are in charge.

I'm not sure why I like cats so much. I mean, they're really cute obviously. They are both wild and domestic at the same time.

Love is such a confusing word. You think I'm joking but I'm not.

I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.

I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke - and as I say this, I'm sure I do it - completely at someone else's expense.

I think narcissists are endlessly watchable. The way they view the world and the way they interact within the world.

In real life, comedians aren't funny.

I calculated that if I wrote five pages a day, which seemed very doable, I would have an 1,800-page first draft when the deadline rolled around. Though completely unwritten, I was very impressed with how long my first draft would be.

If your dad is anything like mine, then you have no clue what to buy him for Father's Day. The only Father's Day tradition in my family is the annual conversation he and I have where I say, 'Hey, Dad, what do you want for Father's Day this year?' and he says, 'Nothing.' Then I ask my mom what I should get him and she says, 'He likes sandalwood soap, dangly jewelry and Chanel No. 5 perfume.'

I like the comedians that go into detail and tell longer stories.

One of the things that is always difficult about a collaboration is that you don't necessarily find the same thing funny. And so the challenge becomes, how do you tell the other person that you don't think something's funny? The best collaborations tend to be when you are willing to be told that. But there's also ego involved, and so there's a lot of frustration in knowing that you're writing something, and the other person, on some level, needs to think that it's funny.