Quotes from Michael Ian Black

Separation is the worst. There's no good way to deal with it, other than to get on the phone and do Skype and try to visit.

Well, I think my stand-up is often kind of visual. Not like Carrot Top visual, but visual.

All my friends were girls. Then my mom's strident feminism for years where men were thought of as the enemy, I just didn't know what the right way to be a man was.

Internet fame is like regular fame only without all the annoying 'money' and 'power.'

The things I care about are the most pedestrian things in the world. I care about good ice cream and being a good dad and a decent husband.

Let me tell you, the life of a C list celebrity is pretty sweet. If I want to go to an Applebee's, all I have to do is, literally, walk in the door. They seat me as soon as the other people ahead of me are seated.

I don't necessarily self-identify as a writer, 'cause it implies a certain level of intelligence.

I think people hate me pretty much across the board, which is nice. I mean, it's a pretty evenhanded loathing among a certain amount of the critical population, which used to be about 80 percent. So now I've gotten to the point where I just don't worry about it that much. It used to be very upsetting, now it's only mildly upsetting.

I don't really read children's books or deal with children's books, so I don't have any relationship with them other than my own.

I honestly believe you can never tell if a relationship is going to last. In my own marriage, which is going on 14 years, I don't think of it as 'I'm going to be with this person forever.' Instead, I think of more like, 'I'll probably be with this person for the next six weeks. Then I'll re-evaluate.'

I am not a music snob. If anything, my musical taste is bad by any critical standards.

Best strategy for a first date is to ask her questions. Just keeping asking her questions about herself. Her life, her job, her friends, her taste in movies and music and everything. People mostly just want to talk about themselves, so let her do that.

I actually don't know anyone who wants to be famous for fame's sake, at least not anyone I respect. But you need to have a certain amount of power in order to be able to do what you want.

There is no word for feeling nostalgic about the future, but that's what a parent's tears often are, a nostalgia for something that has not yet occurred. They are the pain of hope, the helplessness of hope, and finally, the surrender to hope.

All the work that I do, whether or not it ends up being commercially successful or not, feels like the most important thing to me while I'm doing it. I try to take something away from every project, and so they all feel like milestones for one reason or another.

If you say "I'm going to be an actor, but I'll get a teaching degree just in case," when things get hard, you'll just be a teacher and that's how you get stuck.

I loved 'Dungeons & Dragons.' Actually, not so much the actual playing as the creation of characters and the opportunity to roll twenty-sided dice. I loved those pouches of dice Dungeon Masters would trundle around, loved choosing what I was going to be: warrior, wizard, dwarf, thief.

I think writing for anybody helps you order your life. It helps you arrange your emotions and your thoughts and it helps to provide perspective.

Things you never thought were going to turn into something end up being the most important things in your life. You have to learn to not try to control it.

My absolute favorite growing up was 'Super Friends.' The assemblage of so many mighty heroes in one place was, to me, mind-blowing. It was Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, and then sometimes Hawkman and some other, lesser heroes.

Corporations do a lot of things well, but not run nations, for obvious reasons.

People recognize me, but they don't know where from. Today I was in the elevator and somebody asked me if I worked for his company.

I probably should be thinking of better ideas on how to promote myself, but I don't really spend a lot of time doing it. I really don't know how to promote effectively.

Most of the time, you don't win anything on reality shows. You're booted off, or maybe you win $50,000, or $100,000, which isn't really life-changing. I don't know that it's worth it.