I feel like there's a voice in my head, always, telling me every idea is brilliant, and another telling me every idea is the worst. And they argue in my head until somebody wins, until I solicit an audience to be, like, 'Will you help me figure this out? Is this the best or the worst idea?' And they tell me!
— B. J. Novak
I think a lot of writers spend years just getting up the courage to write because it seems like such a fantasy of a profession. My dad saved me all that time by making me think, 'Oh, anyone can be a writer. It's like being a firefighter or a lawyer.'
I have blue eyes, and before I knew anything about fashion - I'm talking about the second grade - I learned I would get a compliment if I wore a blue shirt.
It feels as though a very disproportionate number of main characters are writers, because that's what the writer knows. Fair enough. But nothing bothers me more in a movie than an actor playing a writer, and you just know he's not a writer. Writers recognize other writers. Ethan Hawke is too hot to be a writer.
I wanted to be a writer first, and I struck out in the world to be a writer first, and then found stand-up as a more creative outlet, as a 3D way to be creative.
I'm a believer in trusting the director.
Travel is impossible, but daydreaming about travel is easy.
If I could go to dinner with one person, alive or dead, I think I would choose alive.
I have one really nice watch. It's a white-face, stainless-steel Rolex Daytona. I wear it a lot. I got that in the middle of 'The Office.' All the guys in the writers' room were like, 'Let's all get a nice watch.' We were too busy to upgrade our lives in a big way, but we thought this was a nice symbolic gesture.
If a work alienates a reader, should that be counted against it? I respect people that love 'Ulysses,' for example, but I'm on the other side of the argument. 'Ulysses' would be better if it seduced me. But I probably have the minority point of view.
I think I am very proud of being associated with quality things. So if I were massively famous for doing massively beloved things, yeah, that sounds great.
'The Office' is less a comedy than so many other 'comedies' that have been on the air. It's really about the balance between what is real and what is comic.
The most exciting thing I aspire to do is to write something new that I know is going to work, or perform something that I know is going to make people laugh.
I do not have very much office experience.
I don't actually feel multi-talented. I just feel that I'm in this business where we give ourselves 100 titles and gold statues. It's like, lawyers aren't like, 'You're incredible! You're a professional arguer in front of the judge! You're great at paperwork!' No, you just get credit for one job.
I like jeans, but I think in 100 years it's going to be crazy when we look back at the fact that everyone, every day for about 60 years straight, wore stiff blue pants as their default. Why?
My goal is not to make popular things. My goal is to make the things I love as popular as I can make them.
I remember my mum coming into my bedroom when I was lying awake one night, and she asked what I was thinking of... And I was telling her about the inventions I would invent, and she said, 'Can't you ever just think stupid thoughts?'
Different people have different styles, but there is an opportunity as a director to be a writer in every moment, with every visual cue and every piece of production design. Everything is a decision, and everything can be obsessed over.
Good comics gravitate to each other; you know who's your type of person by watching them onstage, hopefully.
There's not many good comedies to watch - you know, comedies that make you glad you watched them.
