Reggie Watts quotes:

I think the end goal, hopefully, is to take advantage of the attention I've gotten along the way and use it for good and build some communities, and as I get older I can continue to do things and be surrounded by things that are inspirational to me.

I compare a lot of life to looking at a map through a straw. The less ability you have to see life in a humorous way, the smaller the straw is that you're looking at the map of life. You're not looking at the whole picture. You can't see the whole topography without it, and it can help you to make better choices.

I love the idea of something beautiful happening, and then it being abrasively cut into. Because in a way it's similar to switching channels or surfing the web; I like people getting lulled into something and then taking them somewhere else.

I love the whole futuristic landscape of dark, rainy neon, the mix of Eastern and Western cultures and the beautiful shots of the flying cars.

My thing is, I like to do things as long as they're relatively fluid or easy. Not to say that there isn't any effort involved in making something happen, but I don't like to push things or force things too much.

The mind does different things in performance, and conscious thought sometimes takes a backseat.

I like joking around and being a little mischievous. Once an audience or even a group of friends realizes that you're being benevolent about it, then they're along for the ride.

I guess, in a way, I grew up mixed race: half white, half black. That question's always been on my mind: 'What are you? Are you this or that? Are you a white dude or are you a black dude?' In a strange way, music and comedy is kind of the same thing. I'm both. They're just different modes of expression.

For most of my life I've liked to pretend I live in a starship. Punching in fake codes to get into doorways that obviously are not secure. I love that idea of living on a spaceship. Because essentially we are: a gigantic thing floating in some infinite darkness that's running on principles that we don't even understand.

No matter how big a comedian gets, they're ultimately all just a bunch of nerds with their weird insecurities. You realize these are just the people in high school who were making people laugh.

My mom was a pretty hard worker. She worked her ass off, but I'd say we were middle class. I had a car in high school, so I loved the idea that I could mimic this lifestyle.

I love photographs. I love taking photographs. When I see something that's great, I want to capture that. You put it out there and on a place like Instagram you can put it there and review it later.

I don't really like to drink. I don't like the way alcohol feels or tastes. On occasion I'll do it as a social thing, just to kind of go, 'Hey! I did something with you guys!'

Sometimes airport security people recognize me. I'll go through the whole screening process and at the end they'll go, 'Hey, man, I really like your work.' That's so cool.

At my shows you have time to relax, time to just enjoy something really dumb, time to laugh at something that's weird or unexpected and time to think. There's all sorts of things happening and it's great being able to go any way I choose at any given moment.

I try not to eat right before I perform. It's better to perform on an empty stomach - it just feels better. You just feel like a leaner machine. You're not worrying about digesting things.

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.

Every performance is an opportunity to have something new or to learn something new.

Essentially a joke is creating an idea, whether sonic or visual, whether it's something musical or a traditional joke.

I have visualizations where I'm living in a really cool place - probably outside of town - with a really dope studio where I can record music or film things. Just have my own mini production house. That's really the thing I'd love to end up with the most and only do gigs when I needed to and also amass a little bit of a crew around me.

I was on the football team because I wanted to experience the different iconic social classes of high school. So football for me was an attempt to socially integrate in an interesting way. And then I didn't like it anymore and stopped doing it and focused more on drama and science and other forms of art and music.

If you pay attention to the world, it's an amazing place. If you don't, it's whatever you think it is.

I had a job at a movie theater for like a year and a half and then a job at a health food store for, like, two years. Those were the only two jobs I ever had.

Now with the allocation and the understanding of the lack of understanding, we enter into a new era of science in which we feel nothing more than so much so as to say that those within themselves, comporary or non-comporary, will figuratively figure into the folding of our non-understanding and our partial understanding to the networks of which we all draw our source and conclusions from.

When in doubt, zoom out.

I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist. I try not to talk about something unless it's something I love. But if it's something that really annoys me, I fixate on it, learn something about it and then, when I'm onstage, it comes out.

I guess as a kid, I was always creative, and I was involved in music, like piano and violin and choir, so I always knew - I always knew that I wanted to do something that would allow me to be who I am. Generally, that was creatively, imaginatively.

In theater, they say a theater piece is only as good as its transitions.

Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.

I compare a lot of life to looking at a map through a straw. The less ability you have to see life in a humorous way, the smaller the straw is that you're looking at the map of life. You're not looking at the whole picture. You can't see the whole topography without it, and it can help you to make better choices."

Technology is a wonderful tool, but also if used incorrectly a horrible tool. We're fascinated by all aspects of it, whatever makes our human lives easier on the planet, but eventually there will have to be some sort of merger. The fascination isn't going to die down.

I like that feeling of discombobulation that comes in creating an absurd world that doesn't make sense. 'Monty Python' does a good job of it; 'Bugs Bunny,' too.

What I'm doing is not really based on a definite identification or a definition of what it is. It's intended to be open to interpretation.

As a child I was very into gadgets and machines and robots. The idea of experimenting with machines to create art was always something I tinkered with.

As a little kid when I would watch 'Monty Python'... that would just blow me away because it was just so silly and absurd, but so intelligent, and I loved that.

I don't think immortality is necessarily the key to understanding the world. You have to be careful with what you think you're achieving. I'm all for science discovering amazing and fantastic things about our world, but I think the motivations behind it are slightly askew.

If you have something you do that's unique, you just end up in situations. Your art can take you to places without you working too hard to force something to happen.

A lot of times, in music especially, it's producers making a political decision.

An improv artist's best instrument is their ability keep their antennae clean so they're able to receive what I call the connection to creativity. It's the thing that you see in any amazing moment that any human being is performing. Whether it's watching Michael Jordan navigating through all these attackers and then suddenly rising up and putting the ball in the most amazing way, or watching an actor on stage playing Shakespeare, but not thinking about the actor anymore or the stage or you or the chair, any of these kinds of moments of transcendence.

As a child I was very into gadgets and machines and robots.

As long as I have a good time, the audience usually has a good time.

Being faced with too many options. I mean, it makes me feel as though I'm overwhelmed by too many possibilities; that can be a very vulnerable feeling because it's hard to make a decision.

Common knowledge, but important nonetheless

Everyone speaks stupid.

Feel not as though it is a sphere we live on. Rather, an infinite plane which has the illusion of leading yourself back to the point of origin.

Good comedians are great philosophers.

I always composed music as a little kid.

I always did music, but music is an easier thing for me. Making videos and doing comedy things was more of a challenge, so I was more interested in that. Music is a little bit more automatic.

I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist.

I don't have a 10-octave range. No human being has a 10-octave range.

I guess I'm interested in people and society and what we do collectively in the realm of decisions that shape our world. You know, at least on a human level.

I have that language and that set of skills to step out of the way and make music the priority.

I just think that life is a constant experiment.

I like sincerely talking about market analysis and how marketing is ahead of design and design needs to catch up to fulfill the promise of the marketing.

I like that feeling of discombobulation that comes in creating an absurd world that doesn't make sense.

I like to ride the line between absurd and sincere.

I think it's important as a performer, no matter where I travel, if I run into someone at the airport or I'm having a conversation on an airplane, run into someone on the sidewalk, or you're waiting on a long line and you start talking to somebody, who doesn't really share a lot of your same views, but then you come to commonality, I think that's very very important as well.

I think the end goal, hopefully, is to take advantage of the attention Ive gotten along the way and use it for good and build some communities, and as I get older I can continue to do things and be surrounded by things that are inspirational to me.

I try not to talk about something unless it's something I love. But if it's something that really annoys me, I fixate on it, learn something about it and then, when I'm onstage, it comes out.

I usually just say I'm a stand-up comedian, but I use looping machines to create ideas with my voice.

I want to be able to make a movie.

I wear the same pants, same shirt and same shoes every day. I learned it from the greats, like Einstein. It's a uniform essentially.

I would always write lyrics and songs on the piano.

If I can learn a couple of phrases in Italian but do mostly weird, absurd music things, people will like it.

If I'm improvising and I'm not doing well it's because I'm not listening very well. Either I'm overly concerned with something or I'm drifting or maybe I'm too stoned but I'm not getting a clear signal.

If it's physical pain, you just deal with it the best way you can. But if it's more emotional, I don't know. I just try my best to feel it, take it in, and just allow myself to go through whatever may actually come from it. And then a certain amount of it, you can use to transform it through art, which is the healthy way of dealing with it, as well.

I'm always trying to see things from different peoples' perspectives, to understand why they love something.

I'm just kind of interested in focusing on what I'm interested in and just kind of solidifying it, or at least experimenting, or actualizing some of the experiments that I've had in my head for years, either filmicly or with audio.

I'm not into looking crisp. That's not how I dress or who I am.

Im pretty lazy when it comes to creativity. I just want it to be easy and fun.

In general, I'm in support of promoting art and science in public schools. I think music and science are probably the most important factors for the human brain developing. Even more so than any other fields, because music covers mathematics, cognitive reasoning, motor skills, coordination, like, it's kind of everything.

In the absence of truth there is confusion, the essence of truth.

In the past, I was definitely more apt to storing pain away and not worrying about it. But as I get older, it's really about figuring out how to process it, how to feel it, and then also how to use it in my art.

It's creating things that make enough money to create resources to generate new technologies to have those technologies to generate more resources so I can make more things happen.

It's hard to move on when you can see too many good possibilities or any kind of possibility really. That's something that always kind of slows me down and can be a bad place to be in.

I've always wanted to do a Shakespearean soliloquy, or a fake Shakespearean soliloquy, and now I'm doing that more often in shows. Things I've always wanted to do starting to happen.

I've been taking pictures of wherever I go, or on planes, whatever.

Just remember, everything you are is...

Music and art is regarded as extra and can be the first thing that you cut in a school program, and it's completely not true. If you want to create really boring, frustrated human beings, then yeah, cut out art and science.

Not necessarily in the beginning, thinking I would have a career in comedy, but I was always interested in making people laugh.

Obviously, there's all sorts of life happening all around us, but on a human level, I'm just interested in people making informed decisions. You know, increasing their awareness. And also, trying to encourage people to be more fascinated with information and science and knowledge of all sorts, instead of, you know, it's a generalization, but the encouragement by society, the reflections that society gives us, which is media, television, art - anything, really.

One of my favorite things is acting like a speaker or a professor or a CEO of a company and addressing the audience like a group of engineers or designers or marketers.

Performers always come back from the Edinburgh festival with adventure stories. Watts told a few: meeting a young kilt maker who spent a year in a madhouse after eating too much LSD, and accompanying Seattle actor and musician Michael McQuilken (of Collaborator Productions) to the hospital after a Frisbee accident. He reached up to catch it and cut his hand on a sign, .. He had to get a few stitches, but I think he can still play.

Religion can only dream to do what science and art does every day.

Religions are the training wheels of self enlightenment. They can be helpful in the beginning but at some point they must be let go.

Science gives you an understanding of the physical world, and it increases the capacity for fascination.

The biggest fear that I have is settling into too many set behavior patterns, where I feel like I'm no longer exploring possibilities anymore.

The idea of experimenting with machines to create art was always something I tinkered with.

The most important thing is to keep creating and following my inklings as they come into being and acting on them.

The stuff that I'm saying, they're not really traditional, structured jokes. It's not like I'm talking about growing up in Chicago or anything remotely close to that. It's basically me juggling words and concepts and phrases and being stupid.

The things that are reflected back at us, often times, are appealing to a base instinct that's about response as opposed to reflection. So for me, it's important to turn on a piece of information that might interest people, you know, that might interest them in pursuing or researching maybe, or even just thinking about it in that moment as I'm performing it.

There are things I believe in to a certain extent, as much as a scientist would. And I like, through the means of entertainment, to explore those ideas.

There are three different modes: playing piano, just me at the microphone, and me at my effects units. And I can mix those up in different ways.

Ultimately I want to be able to create whatever I want whenever I want. And if that doesn't work, I don't mind just doing weird plays.

We're all just memories of our future selves.

What I'm doing on stage now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Whatever encourages people to become more interested in who they are and discovering who they are, as opposed to just accepting what people or things are saying what they are. That's fascinating to me.

When I'm at the piano, and I'm improvising some song about something, it usually oscillates between factual, absurd, and sincere.

When I'm performing, I hope my research and my experience with those things I'm talking about rings true.

When you look at a photo twenty years from now, if you look at a photo of a moment in your life, or some friends, or yourself, you just have a lot more information about what that memory was. That's exciting to me. It's like a form of time preservation, I suppose.

When you're improvising, you're relying on this connection to creativity.

Whether I go to English-speaking countries or non-English-speaking countries I can just modulate to what works for them.

Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.

You can either just have fun with the joke or you can have fun with the joke and think about the implication of it. It's totally up to the listener.