Growing up, if I had been given any advice - bad or good - I probably wouldn't have been able to act on it regardless. I wasn't shy, but I'd get nervous. I got a little more confident later in high school when I realized I could get girls to pay attention to me by making them laugh.

I think there's something kind of good about growing up in a place you know is not the cool place to be. I think it's good for your head.

There is something about growing up in the Midwest that gives a different kind of sensibility. But if I'm feeling insecure, the smiles and politeness get upped a notch, and maybe that isn't totally reflective of how I'm feeling on the inside.

I don't feel like a dork, but I certainly have many moments of nerdism, and I embrace it wholeheartedly. I've always cottoned to that crowd more, anyway.

Everyone was doing alternative comedy. I thought I'd distinguish myself by just telling jokes, with differing degrees of success.

Comedy isn't necessarily all dialogue. Think of Buster Keaton: the poker face and all this chaos going on all around him. Sometimes it's a question of timing, of the proper rhythm.

If you record the world honestly, there's no way people can stop being funny. A lot of fiction writing doesn't get that idea, as if to acknowledge it would trivialize the story or trivialize human nature, when in fact human nature is reduced and falsified if the comic aspects are not included.

The more I live, the more I think that humor is the saving sense.