Quotes from Tom Green

I've always found success in sort of separating myself from the pack mentality things.

When my first show was on MTV, and it was this outrageous persona, I think people certainly didn't know what to think. But it was a performance. I'm sure people didn't know that it was a performance; they thought maybe I was just nuts, but that was all intentional.

The thing to keep in mind is that's how I started long before MTV and Twitter and Facebook. I studied at broadcasting school so I could learn how to shoot and edit videos, and tried to create my own television show so we could see through these wacky visions we had of funny bits we wanted to shoot.

It was just a very short period of time that I had a brief marriage.

I basically went into broadcasting when I was in college because I knew that there was nothing like what I had in my mind on TV at the time.

When you work in television, working for a big corporation, no matter who you are, you can always get cancelled. That sucks. Do you really want to work with an axe over your head for the rest of your life? Not me, not really, and not if you don't have to.

It bothers me when people say 'shock comic' or 'gross-out' because that was only one type of comedy I did. There was prank comedy. Man-on-the-street-reaction comedy. Visually surreal comedy. But you do something shocking, and that becomes your label.

I'm no more a lawbreaker than they are , and if they were lawbreakers for keeping God's commandments, they're my example.

I don't really consider myself an actor, and I don't know if I'm a comedian.

I have a different perspective on the world than the way I looked at the world when I was 20. I was kind of naive. I'm a cancer survivor, been working in this industry for a time, and older with more opinions, more experience.

All of my old videos and the things I did on MTV, my old public access show - it was sort of all made for the Web, even though they were made before the Internet was broadcasting video.

I first met the 'Trailer Park Boys' when they did my web television show, and since then, I've hung out with them a few times.

I want people to know that I'm not just this crazy person flailing around. A lot of thought goes into what I do.

I definitely think L.A. would be a very difficult city to move to and try to make it in. There's a lot of people down there, and it's tough to stand out in the crowd.

In 1980s, I discovered 'Late Night with David Letterman.' It was on one of the 13 cable TV channels. They didn't have 25 late night talk show hosts trying to be the most outrageous. There was the likeable television genius Johnny Carson and his mad-genius counterpart Dave. There was nothing else crazy on TV every night, and there was no Internet.

I grew up practically getting into this business because of David Letterman. I wanted to do comedy-based interviews.

I do sometimes find it interesting when I look at a lot of the pranks that are out there, and I see kids doing the exact things that I did in the '90s. Like, I would go out on the street on crutches and fall down, and people would help me. Or I would paint my parents' house plaid; I've seen that replicated.

Steve Jobs is considered an amazing genius and made billions of dollars. Sure, we overlook that he didn't pay his share of taxes and didn't believe in charity. But other than these occasional rumblings of dissent, he is pretty much held in high esteem.

When I started my show, it was a public access show in Canada, and I was a broadcasting student in the early '90s, years before I was on MTV. We were kids sort of experimenting and trying to take on the system - you know, the media machine.

I used to love 'The Late Late Show.' It was nice to be able to be up late at night and see an extended conversation.

I think that young people - teenagers, college-age people, anyone under the age of 30 - know when they're being pandered to.

I could sit here and say, 'What would have happened if I hadn't made that crazy television show, if I hadn't made those crazy movies?' Well, I'd be back in Canada working at Dairy Queen.

I think all comedy has victims, really. Even if it's not a victim that appears on camera, usually there's a victim. If it's political comedy, if you're talking about the president or whoever, there's a victim there.

I don't really like to just sit down at a computer and write, because that tends to be a little forced.