John Mulaney Quotes

There's a lot of creative freedom. Acting is a whole boatload of fun, but I prefer to do it on my own terms.

If you write, produce and direct, you own things and see them through to the end.

Writing for myself and writing for another artist are two very different experiences. When I handle both the story and the art, I have full control. I can endlessly tweak every word and every line.

Acting is a whole boatload of fun, but I prefer to do it on my own terms.

I wanted to express myself more fully through writing and directing. It just feels like a package deal. Anytime you create anything, you try to exert mastery over your world.

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.

Stand-up comedy is all you. It's your show, it's your game. You control every aspect of it - of that experience and that expression. There's really nothing quite as satisfying.

I could make a whole album with no one else involved at all. It would be a total, unadulterated expression of myself. Because whenever you have others playing on a project, their influence becomes a part of it.

I like acting when I can pick my own roles, and I do. It's fun. I like being creative, and it's a creative process.

People ask, like, 'How are you going to incorporate what you do onstage into everything else?' I'm not too worried about that. Whether it's theater or a TV show idea, or an animated thing or, I don't know, an animated screensaver. I really just want to keep creating things. And I've always been able to do that.

I've never really felt comfortable co-writing. I usually go at my own speed, you know.

The writing of 'The Ladykillers' was fun. But once it goes out of your hands it's not fun, 'especially for someone who is used to being hands-on like me.

That's something I like about drag - I get to do everything. Collaborative arts are hard for me because I don't really like to relinquish control.

I am a lot happier, focusing on the production side of things than wanting to be in front of the camera. If I am going to dance to someone else's tune, it might as well be my own.

It's been so inspiring to have complete creative control and to just have fun creating and collaborating with people I admire greatly.

I've done a lot of writing for other people, other projects, and what I tried to do with the music I'm putting out for myself is kind of keep it where I'm doing everything.

I really like doing stand-up, because it gives you an immense amount of freedom. You haven't got anyone telling you what to do. It's great to have that much power over what you do. You don't have that in television.

We got full artistic integrity and autonomy over what we were doing, and that was the main important thing that kept our band alive.

We've been fully involved in making our music, and to be personally involved is what we really asked for.

I felt when I was gambling that the house always wins, and it was always like, how can I become the house? But when you're a band, you are the house because you can write the songs, you can wear your own clothes, you can pick where your show is. I can choose my own cards, basically.

I have people telling me what I can and can't do, what music I can and can't make.

When I'm writing my album, it's totally my world. Even though it's myself and another producer creating the project, Conceptually it's more under my power and on my own terms. At the same time, it's a different type of pressure because I'm ultimately speaking, I'm solely responsible for the end result.

You learn early as an actor that creating your own material is the only way to have any control.

If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy.