Max Joseph Quotes

Many of my friends back in New York and elsewhere have a glib or dismissive attitude toward Los Angeles. It's a place of strip malls and traffic and not much else, in their opinion.

When I retired from the NFL, no one knew who I was, and I had to start all over. I ended up doing security in L.A., and I was just on movie sets and watching.

I go to bars and restaurants, and I sit and I eavesdrop on people and I watch people in shopping centers and, you know, I read the newspapers and I talk to the Trenton cops, and I just get a lot of information that comes in that somehow turns into a book.

In 1994, after four years of talking about travel on my first show, I realized I knew so little about the world - I knew so little about myself. I decided to quit my job and pursue a postgraduate degree in New York.

Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.

The only place I am recognized all the time is in L.A. and otherwise, it's only about once a day. I feel pretty anonymous.

I live in South Africa. I'm proud to live there. I've always said I want to be a comedian from South Africa in the world. I will stay in places for a bit here and there and pop into New York for a while, maybe stay in London for a year, but my home will always be South Africa. I enjoy it too much.

I'm definitely bicoastal, but I have to say, it's easier to live in New York than in L.A. I feel like people respect other people's space a bit more here. Everyone has the right to that freedom, right? Everyone has that right. It's freezing in New York right now. In L.A., it's sunny. But I would choose freezing over being followed.

The problem with losing your anonymity is that you can never go back.

Wherever I go, I'm watching. Even on vacation, when I'm in an airport or a railroad station, I look around, snap pictures, and find out how people do things.

New York is not going to be a foreign place to me. They didn't revoke my visa.

I found L.A. much less responsive to the name Juilliard than New York was. In New York, that name actually means something. People will look up from their desks when you walk in. In L.A. it's, 'Oh yeah, that's a music school. What do you play?'

When we go somewhere in New York, I'm known as Mr. Savini.

I live in Brooklyn, and I love all the hipsters and all the artisanal bacon you can get here now. I consider New York my home, and L.A. a place that I go. I always say I go with an empty sack and try to fill it with as much money as possible to bring back to New York.

… information that has come in has not commenced an investigation …. I never made a lead from rhetoric that came from a Demographics report, and I'm here since 2006

Honestly, I don't shop in L.A. very much - it's mostly in New York or when I'm away on trips.

When I go back to New York all these years later, I'll walk down Seventh Avenue, and I'll hear, 'Yo, Oz!' In New York, I get recognized for that all the time.

I'm in New York part of the time and in L.A. part of the time. That's always been a goal, to be bicoastal in a real way.

I live in Chicago, but my work is always in New York or L.A., so I always have to travel for my job.

When I'm in New York and L.A., I get recognized a lot more.

The same group of New York pseudo-intellectuals who've put down prayer are the same ones who put down L.A.

Some people go to L.A. just to see recognizable people. There are tour buses. But in New York, everyone seems a little less into that.

I've actually enjoyed my time in L.A. more than a New Yorker is supposed to.

Any time I can come to L.A., because I live in New York... when I go to L.A., it really is about the people, having reunions and seeing my friends I don't see enough.

L.A. has always been hated on so much. I remember, the first time I went to New York, I was at jam sessions, and people would hear me and come up to me and be like, 'Oh wow, you're from L.A.? Really?'