Quotes from B. J. Novak

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.

It's not always enough to be brave, I realized years later. You have to be brave and contribute something positive, too. Brave on its own is just a party trick.

There's not many good comedies to watch - you know, comedies that make you glad you watched them.

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.

'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.

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!

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?'

Regret is just perfectionism plus time.

Travel is impossible, but daydreaming about travel is easy.

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.

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.

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.

If you love something, let it go. If you don't love something, definitely let it go. Basically, just drop everything, who cares.

If I could go to dinner with one person, alive or dead, I think I would choose alive.

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.'

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.

Travel is impossible, but daydreaming about travel is easy.

Mindy Kaling gets her own line in the acknowledgments, as previously negotiated by her representatives. Thanks, Mindy. I love you and you're the best.

I'm a believer in trusting the director.

Battered Women: sounds delicious. Doesn't make it right.

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.

Good comics gravitate to each other; you know who's your type of person by watching them onstage, hopefully.

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 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.