Quotes from Marc Maron

On some level any appearance on Television can be seen as a product endorsement.

The demand for standup in the eighties was created by how easy it was to exploit 'comedians' and create very cheap television programming.

I didn't know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I'm flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.

I think seeing Pryor's first movie, Live In Concert, when I was in high school changed my life. Pryor really put the heart in darkness for me.

I've become less angry and a little more humble by age and by experience and by going through the ups and downs of life.

Left wing, right wing, I am wingless and tired of trying to fly. Here comes the ground.

All I can do in the context of pursuing any sort of TV thing, and all I've done in the past, is offer your life at any given point in time to whatever situation you're in.

Whether people know the evolution of the conversation or not, I don't know, but thematically, as a comedian, I stay in the same ballpark - around my issues and my philosophy of life.

I sort of get tired of myself sometimes. When you're busy, your life becomes relatively small. But I don't really get tired of talking to other people.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it's taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

We live in a culture where people are self-centered and careerist and everybody seems to think they have too much on their plate or they just don't have time for other people's pain.

I'm not against people just being funny or telling stories. I don't need to delve into the soft, dark core all the time. If it happens, it happens.

It may have lost its special-ness forever and the clubs might not being doing well but I think standup is in the best shape it has been in a long time.

Because we're comics and we pass each other on campus, we know of each other, and a lot of the time there's a mutual respect there.

Most of the comics that I talk to I've never talked to for more than ten minutes ever. So 95 percent of the time you're really hearing the first conversation between me and that guy on the podcast.

My dad is actually a manic depressive, which is very exciting half the time.

It seems people are more willing to let other people control their minds now and recreational drug use doesn't seem to have that same renegade sense of adventure that it once did.

The truth is, I can't read anything with any distance. Every book is a self-help book to me. Just having them makes me feel better.

In the sixties and seventies you could probably name all the great comics. It was still special.

When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.

Buying my wife a gun sort of like me saying, ' You know, I kinda want to kill myself, but I want it to be a surprise'.

I just wanted to be a good comic and had no sense of show business, but at some point you want the opportunity to write a show about your life.

I'm glad to be part of the war on sadness. I'm a part time employee of the illusion that keeps people stupid.

That's the big challenge of life—to chisel disappointment into wisdom so people respect you and you don't annoy your friends with your whining.