georgetown-university-alumni

"My mom would blame me for things that happened on the news. That is true. I woke up one morning when I was a kid, and my mom was standing over my bed, and she said: "I just heard that Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed have been killed in Paris", like I had something to do with it. [...] Luckily, I had a good alibi, since I was in Wisconsin and twelve."

"When I was in grade school, I was bullied for being Asian American. And the biggest problem with that is that I am not Asian American."

"13-year-olds are the meanest people in the world. They terrify me to this day. [...] Eighth-graders will make fun of you, but in an accurate way. They will get to the thing that you don't like about you. They don't even need to look at you for long, they'll just be like, "hey, look at that high-waisted man, he got feminine hips". And I'm like, "no, that's the thing I'm sensitive about!""

"I'm one of the worst drivers I have ever seen, and I just want you all to know that, if you're ever on the highway behind me, I hear you honking, and I also don't want me to be doing what I'm doing."

"It is so much easier not to do things than to do them that you would do anything is totally remarkable."

"A "hero" is any man who does his job. You a lot of times see headlines that are like, "hero tutor teaches after school", and you're like, yeah."

"I have a girlfriend now myself, which is weird because I'm probably gay, based on the way I act and behave and have walked and talked for 28 years. I think I was supposed to be gay, I think like in heaven, they built like three quarters of a gay person, and then they forgot to flip the final switch, and they just sent me out, and it was like, "you marked that one gay, right?", and it was like, "oh, no, was I supposed to?", and they were like, "oh, man this will be a very interesting person"."

"You know those days when you're like, "this might as well happen". Adult life is already so goddamn weird."

"I don't like confrontation, 'cause I've never been in a fight before. Though maybe you could tell that from the first moment I walked out on stage. I don't give off that vibe. Some people give off a vibe of, like... Right away, they're like "Do not fuck with me." My vibe is more like, "Hey, you could pour soup in my lap and I'll probably apologize to you.""

"It's just creepy to have an ex out there after things have ended badly. They have a lot of information. Anyone who's seen my dick and met my parents needs to die. I can't have them roaming around."

"I was raised Catholic. I don't know if you can tell that from the everything about me."

"For those of you who aren't Catholic, I don't mean to exclude you, although we love to exclude you."

"I like having a puppy that's a bulldog, 'cause it's like having a baby that is also a grandma."

"2029? That's not a real year. By 2029, I'll be drinking moon juice with President Jonathan Taylor Thomas."

"Real estate agents have to deal with the dumbest people in the world making the biggest decisions of their lives."

"I got offended on behalf of my imaginary kids. [...] My children are not gonna be playing out on grass. They will be up in their rooms playing violent video games and catfishing pedophiles."

"I didn't mean to make it sound like we don't want children. We don't, but I didn't mean to make it sound like that."

"Better if a guy named Sayeed Farouk was reporting that a guy named Christopher Hayes was the shooter."

"I agree with that in principle. Where would you stick the knife in?"

"The remarks attributed to John Podesta, who is Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, are just extraordinarily patronizing and insulting to Catholics. What he would say is offensive. And if it had been said about the Jewish community, if it had been said about the Islamic community, within 10 minutes there would have been an apology."

"The American people want climate action. New polling from Climate Power 2020 finds 71 percent favor bold government action on climate change, while only 18 percent oppose it... Running boldly on tackling the climate crisis, running on a Green New Deal, these are policies that can be popular in all 50 states. Democrats should run toward, not away from these fights. The evidence is clear: If we loudly make the case for bold climate action, we will win... We’ve never seen our country so eager to elect leaders who will take bold action to stop the climate crisis. Neither have we ever known a country in such dire need of such bold action. In a moment of historic unemployment, Democrats want to put millions of people back to work now by investing in bold climate action that would create millions of clean energy jobs and begin to repair decades of environmental injustice. That’s what the American people want too. By 23 points, voters support investing trillions of dollars in clean energy infrastructure."

"I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it."

"We are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later."

"… most scientists are really quite happy to talk about their work. It's often hard to get them to shut up, actually."

"The inability to explain something doesn't mean that it is inexplicable. … Always consider the simplest things first. … The inability to explain it doesn't mean that it has to be something fantastical or alien, or that it's unexplainable."

"I will never be convinced by any anecdotal report, ever, especially if something extremely unlikely or unusual. Memory is not a reliable piece of data."

"Placebo effects (plural) are mostly reporting bias, regression to the mean, investment justification, researcher bias, and other sources of self-deception. They are transient, and significant only for subjective symptoms where reporting bias can play a major role. Studies have shown, in fact, that there is no significant "healing" that occurs due to placebo effects — no objective biological improvement."

"I think the Internet is the biggest classroom we have."

"… you don't realize whether or not you completely understand a topic until you are tasked to explain it to someone else. … That really challenges your understanding of a topic."

"I think science is best taught as a puzzle to be solved."

"You need systems. You need checklists. You need … things in place to keep people from making mistakes. Left to their own devices, people will screw up on a regular basis."

"Even though I think they're probably usually wrong, minority opinions in science are very useful. It keeps the whole process honest ..."

"What defines a cult is not what they believe, at all. It's how they behave. The belief system is almost incidental."

"… our inherent assumption is that you convince people with rational arguments. But all the data shows that most people are not influenced by rational arguments. They're influenced by social pressure. … That's just the human condition, and we just have to acknowledge it and accept it."

"In fact, there are many altered brain states where people may have a very vivid experience, or at least a vivid memory of their experience, precisely because they have impaired brain function. When you start dropping some of the higher brain functions out of the loop, like reality testing and things like that, … things can seem hyper-real. That could actually be a sign of brain dysfunction. It's similar to … somebody who is stoned thinking that they are really profound."

"Isn't the future necessarily going to be dominated by machine life?"

"Ignorance is a low-energy state. It takes constant vigilance and work to climb out of it."

"We will make virtual brains. … We will be able to create consciousness without really ever understanding it."

"As you study science, and really try to understand what is happening behind the curtain, not just reading the predigested press releases but actually talking to scientists or reading technical papers, you realize that ... it's always more complicated than you think. ... No measurement is simple. ... The way you make the comparison will address different issues."

"It is pretty well established that there is an overconfidence effect. ... You don't have the competence to assess your own competence. ... you need competence in order to assess your own competence. ... Everyone has the Dunning-Kruger effect."

"There's a host of scams that are evolving all the time."

"The thing about herbs is that there is nothing supernatural or implausible about the fact that any particular herb can have a medicinal effect. But the truth of the matter is that herbs are drugs. There's nothing magical about them. The fact that they are "natural" is irrelevant — it's meaningless. They are drugs. They are drugs that have not been purified, identified, … and quantified. … Probably for most plants … there are hundreds of chemicals in there with varying degrees of potency."

"There's a silliness that is in my stand-up. I grew up in Indiana, worshipping David Letterman, so it's Letterman-like, observational, a little bit offbeat. I don't go up there and make fun of people's shirts. There's a bit of dryness in it."

"On MySpace … the whole demographic of the stand-up comedy fan has changed. It's like an indie band thing. People think they've discovered you."

"People don't know who I am. Some people don't know I do standup. They just write that I'm that guy from those failed sitcoms. I always joke that 'I've never heard of me either.'"

"I grew up in a family where no one was in the entertainment business. So stand-up and acting were seen as something unrealistic. I always thought it was just people in L.A. and New York that became actors or comedians."

"Yeah, I am a character actor."

"I liked the idea that my character was not gonna be the typical dumb guy that I play, typically. I also loved the fact that it was dealing with kind of adult-extended adolescence, which I think is always interesting -- a bunch of people that don't wanna grow up."

"I curse in everyday life, but usually when I stub my toe. The topics I'm discussing, it's not necessary to curse. I found [cursing] is a sign that a joke is not finished or well-written."

"I do kind of aspire to do comedy that appeals to a wide range of audiences and doesn't divide people. I never want to do material that makes people laugh at the expense of making other people feel bad - not to say I'm not guilty of that at times. ... I try and make humor out of the really important issues of the day, like Hot Pockets and elevators and not wanting to get out of bed."