Paul Reiser quotes:

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

Three has always been tougher than Two. Think of any of your famous threesomes. The Three Stooges? Look at the anger there. My bet is that before Curly was born, Moe and Larry could play together for hours without even a single poke in the eye. Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Donald Duck never had a moment's peace. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? I rest my case.

People come up to us and ask how we knew so much about their own family... I'm talking about people from faraway places, too. I get people from Turkey and Chile coming up to me and saying I wrote about their family.

And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently.

The simple combination of letters and sounds you select as a name for your baby can result in a life of carefree coolness or decades of expensive therapy. Hi, I'm Jake versus Hi, I'm... Tapioca

The most used appliance in our house is my 10-year-old son Leon's Xbox.

But at the same time that the experience is pulling you apart, it's also bonding you. You have this joint venture! You both made this baby. And that's the thing I still can't get over.

Parents often give middle names just so that later, when they're yelling at the kid, they can drag it out. Henry David Thoreau, you come in here this instant!

But the two of them together, broke my heart. Olympia and Peter, those scenes... When they're kissing in their 20s and then kissing in their 70s, that's what it is. And they had never met five minutes before they shot those scenes.

There's something that happens in that delivery room, when a woman becomes ten times more a woman, and a guy becomes six times less a man. You feel really dopey and useless and like a spectator. I did, anyway.

New parents always sound like hucksters in a pyramid scheme. Anyone who has kids and then gets you to go and have kids gets a check from Huckster Headquarters.

In some cultures they don't name their babies right away. They wait until they see how the child develops. Like in Dances with Wolves. Unfortunately, our kids' names would be less romantic and poetic. "This is my oldest boy, Falls off His Tricycle, his friend, Dribbles His Juice, and my beautiful daughter, Allergic to Nuts.

But at the same time that the experience is pulling you apart, it's also bonding you. You have this joint venture! You both made this baby. And that's the thing I still can't get over

Marriage is just an elaborate game that allows two selfish people to periodically feel that they're not.

The most rewarding part about being a dad is just looking at children who didn't exist at some point. The first time you saw them, they were the size of a quarter, in a sonogram, and now they can pour orange juice and yell at each other.

A new child in the house is a huge tourist attraction. It's like Disneyland, except there the lines are longer and no one brings casseroles.

People often ask me, "What's the difference between couplehood and babyhood?" In a word? Moisture. Everything in my life is now more moist. Between your spittle, your diapers, your spit-up and drool, you got your baby food, your wipes, your formula, your leaky bottles, sweaty baby backs, and numerous other untraceable sources-all creating an ever-present moistness in my life, which heretofore was mainly dry.

And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently

If a tree falls on your head in a forest and no one hears it, it still hurts.

You know, the fact that every morning you get a script in your mailbox, that's going to stop. All these little pedestrian, mundane things. And the cash.

Once in a while you get a moment of clarity - an inspiration - and they don't come that frequently.

I'd distract myself until finally it was a combination of things. The show was over and I had time on my hands. I had taken time and played and just relaxed.

And after you've done the acting, there's a lot of places you can put your input - in the editing, in the production of it, in the rewriting of it and so on

I used to walk into a party and scan the room for attractive women. Now I look for women to hold my baby so I can eat potato salad sitting down.

Field of Dreams is the only movie - and I saw it in the theater - on an afternoon when I was on location somewhere, and there were like 12 people in the theater. I was just so devastated; I couldn't get out of my seat. And I sat and watched it a second time.

The most challenging part of being a dad is trying to postpone the moment when they realize you don't know anything. I love any sentence that begins with Daddy...? because it's implied they're looking up to you - that you'll have the answer. The truth is, I don't have any answers.

Field of Dreams is the only movie - and I saw it in the theater - on an afternoon when I was on location somewhere, and there were like 12 people in the theater. I was just so devastated; I couldn't get out of my seat. And I sat and watched it a second time

But you get past that and realize you have to let go of what you think you want. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Right now, go and be with that baby. Just play with this beautiful little boy.

My wife and I never agree on the dishtowels. It's a matter of terms. She asks me not to put the dishtowel in the sink. So I drape it over the sink, but not in the sink. If that's our biggest problem, I think we're in good shape.

Our date-nightrule is no talking about the kids. That lasts about to the end of the driveway.

The first time I tried to put a new diaper on my baby, I yanked the little Velcro strap too jerkily and actually punched the little guy in the jaw. A real solid shot, too. I knew instinctively that this could not be correct. Unless you're specifically trying to raise a welterweight, continual deliverance of powerful uppercuts is not advised when handling newborns.

My parenting style could be described as not good cop or bad cop so much as nervous cop. I'm always yelling for somebody to stop because they're about to get hurt. I'm the take a jacket, slow down guy.

The best part of being married is... you don't have to explain a lot of things. Those wordless moments when you both know that what you witnessed together is funny, idiotic, or really sweet. Being connected is pretty miraculous.

I remember my wife and I used to get on plane and see everybody else with their babies. They'd be putting strollers and car seats up above, and we'd think: Oh, please Lord, don't make us go through that.

They're not the sharpest people - babies. So, you must be everything to them.

I'm not smart enough to write about something that didn't actually happen to me. But I couldn't write a space movie if you put a gun to my head.

The jewel in the baby product crown is the stroller. And if in America you are what you drive, then in Parentland, you are what you push.

I remember my wife and I used to get on plane and see everybody else with their babies. They'd be putting strollers and car seats up above, and we'd think: Oh, please Lord, don't make us go through that

Upstate New York in the middle of October. You can't get more beautiful than that.

She kind of reminds one of Helen. There's something very similar about Elizabeth Perkins.

We had the boy's name picked out, but we didn't have a girl's. When he turned out to be a boy, we were so relieved. Literally, in the middle of contracting and pushing, and with my wife being drugged - out and half - lucid, we were still coming up with names.

We have such a long, familiar history with Peter Falk. The minute his mug is on that screen people smile.

As you get older you realize your parents don't look so dumb - and that you're not as smart as you thought you were.

But you get past that and realize you have to let go of what you think you want. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Right now, go and be with that baby. Just play with this beautiful little boy

By shrewdly linking procreation to an act likely to make you stupid with excitement, God has seen to it that Life does indeed go on. It's possible, by the way, that this is why God's name comes up so often in the middle of the act; it's a salute to the author: Hey, whoever made this up - thanks.

Every time I see Peter Falk in the movie I think that would be great. We'd be fun together

From the minute we're born, boys and girls stare at each other, trying to figure out if they like what they see. Like parade lines, passing each other for mutual inspection. You march, you look. You march, you look. If you're interested, you stop and talk, and if it doesn't work out, you just get back in the parade. You keep marching, and you keep looking.

Get a good dog. We have not picked up food in the kitchen in 15 years.

Happiness is the quiet lull between problems.

He was born early. But he was born within a safe range of premature.

I always loved comedy, but I never knew it was something you could learn to do. I always thought that some people are born comedians ... just like some people are born dentists.

I can't get past the fact that food is coming out of my wife's breasts. What was once essentially an entertainment center has now become a juice bar.

I'd never directed before and this movie's too important to me to put in the hands of some guy who has never directed. Even if it's me

In fact, I had the idea because of Peter Falk. I saw my dad watching a Peter Falk movie and something clicked in my head. I gotta go make a movie for Peter Falk and me

In the history of life, no good news has followed that sentence ["We have to talk."].

In the original draft I was 27 and Peter was 55 in the script. That's not the same as a guy in his 40s and a dad in the end of his 70s. It's a different point in both our lives.

It turns out most of the conclusions that I've come to in life have equally valid contradictions. I think it's true you need to make a plan, set a goal and stick to it, but I would also advise: Don't keep your eyes so fixed on your goal that you miss what sneaks up to surprise you, because magic will come from unexpected places.

It was trying to make my tennis game look mildly respectable, which I found you don't even really need to practice if you have a really good editor. They can edit it and you're like, "Hey, it looks like I'm playing really well." That was the fun part, but it was like going to summer camp.

It's not like some movies where you're following a bunch of different stories you can cut around. There was nowhere to cut to. It's these guys. We're not cutting back to anybody else

I've come to realize that making it your life's work to be different than your parents is not only hard to do, it's a dumb idea. Not everything we found fault with was necessarily wrong; we were right, for example, to resent, as kids, being told when to go to bed. We'd be equally wrong, as parents, to let our kids stay up all night. To throw out all the tools of parenting just because our parents used them would be like making yourself speak English without using ten letters of the alphabet; it's hard to do.

Jerry Lewis played on the very first season of Mad About You, and he played basically himself, but he was called some other name. He said he's never done it; he'd never done a half-hour of [sitcom] television. This was 1992 or '93. And I said, "Well how is that?" And he goes, "Nobody ever asked me." It's like the pretty girl at the dance; everybody's too afraid to ask.

Just because a baby cries, I discovered, doesn't mean there's always something wrong. Sometimes babies wake up for no real reason. They just want to check if they're doing it right. "This is Sleeping, right?" "Exactly." "I just lie here?" "That's right." "Okay." Then back to sleep they go.

Middle names are kind of like vice presidents: It's a fine distinction and certainly an honor, but you're never not aware that someone else got the real job.

My wife would say my worst habit is that I'm not good at dropping subjects. If something bothers me, I'll bring it up endlessly and relentlessly. I think it's a search for clarity, but she uses different words.

Nothing would make me happier if Peter Falk would finally win his Oscar for this. Not just as the writer but as a fan and a friend. It would be so great

Over the years, there certainly have been plenty of ideas that I've had and given up on, but for this one, the only thing that was standing in its way was me doing it - I just had to write it... And then if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. But I didn't want it to be for lack of effort on my part, so I had hunch that it would be a good story and that we would work well together. And it certainly worked out that way.

Peanut butter and lamb chops were not foods that had ever been a significant part of our life before pregnancy. In fact, my wife almost never ate either.So where did these craving come from? I concluded it's the baby, ordering in.

So where did these cravings come from? I concluded it's the baby ordering in. Prenatal takeout. Even without ever being in a restaurant, fetuses develop remarkably discerning palates, and they are not shy about demanding what they want. If they get a hankering, they just pick up the umbilical cord and call. 'You know what would taste good right now? A cheeseburger, large fries, and a vanilla shake. And if you could, hurry it up, because I'm supposed to grow a lung in a half hour.'

Sometimes it works out well, and certain household responsibilities fall naturally to those who like doing them. For example, my wife likes to pack suitcases, I like to unpack them. My wife likes to buy groceries, I like to put them away. I do. I like the handling and discovering, and the location assignments. Cans - over there. Fruit - over there. Bananas - not so fast. You go over here. When you learn not to go bad so quickly, then you can stay with the rest of your friends.

That's the nice thing about doing stand-up. There's no development, you just go out there and get an immediate response as to whether something is good or bad. Getting a laugh is the best measure of how well you're doing.

The biggest thing I remember is that there was just no transition. You hit the ground diapering.

The consumer mentality - we like something, what other flavor does it come in? We like that TV show, does it come in a book form? Does it come in a capsule? How about a soup?

There are two types of people in life - those who get it and those who don't.

There was a period where our child's birth was getting really close, and we still had nothing. We were dangerously close to calling him Untitled Baby Project.

There's something very refreshing about being on stage.

They don't see that whole pattern. Worm/death. Worm/death. I would catch on.

Two or three times a week, I drive by the houses of numbers 78-100 just to rub it in,

We all hold on to some image of the family we want, based one way or another on the family we had. Lots of people are thrilled about the families they came from, others couldn't get away fast enough. Most people fall into that vast middle ground: great affection mixed with a few ideas for improvement. A couple of things they wish could have perhaps been done differently.

We have such a long, familiar history with Peter Falk. The minute his mug is on that screen people smile

When I'm writing for a book, it's much more reflective process. I have certain things that may not translate well to the stage, but, when they're on the page, people can really get into them. My first two books were aiming to be funnier, but the third was more about deep exploration. Things about being a parent and growing older that I thought would be perfect for a book.

When my son said, "I can't stop thinking about girls," I said, "That's not gonna stop. Congratulations. You're in the club. From now until the day you die, one way or another you'll be thinking about girls.

When people talk about wanting to have children someday, what they really mean is that they want babies. Nobody wants an angry adolescent. Nobody wants an obnoxious seven-year-old trying to wear out dirty words they just learned in school that day. What they really want is cute, adorable babies who love you and need you. The bad stuff is just the price you agree to pay for having the good stuff.

When you realize you would consider not having a child just so you could take an occasional snooze and be available to see Batman Retires the same weekend it comes out, you have to take a good hard look at yourself and acknowledge, I am a shallow, shallow person.

When you're in @#*!#-ing hell, your forehead can feel a wee bit feverish. (By the way, that's the way my wife actually curses. She doesn't use dirty words; she'll literally say "asterisk, pound sign, exclamation point, the-letter-'A'-with-a-circle-around-it, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk.")

Why do you think people close their eyes when they kiss? Think about it. In the real world, if you saw someone an-inch-and-a-half away, coming at you with their eyes open and their lips puckered, you'd scream. It's alarming.

You know what? The obvious is obvious for a reason.

Younger kids, they understand that things aren't so perfect with their father or with their mother.

A friend told me to listen to my heart. Another friend told me to listen to my gut. Maybe I need an autopsy, because right now my colon is kind of iffy.