Patton Oswalt Quotes

It's very hard to play a hyperactive character all the time, I try my best, but I end up collapsing at the end of the day.

The very first job I did, a Barbie commercial when I was eight or nine, that was like 'Oh my God.' Because when you're watching things on TV, you think it's like a fantasy. But then to actually do it and then see yourself, it's like 'Oh my God.'

I wanted to have a normal childhood. Normal relationships.

A stable and nurturing childhood is essential for the healthy psycho-emotional and spiritual development of a human being. While we may understand what is supposed to happen to us physically, we must begin to better understand what happens to children mentally, emotionally and spiritually as a result of the families into which they are born.

It's fun to play a dark character, but you go home at the end of the day not feeling very good about yourself. You go away feeling dirty. It seeps into the air.

Society should see parenting as a public health issue and help parents to bring their children up feeling loved. We have birthing classes, but no parenting classes. The latter is desperately needed if we are to avoid self-destruction.

When I was 8, my dad asked me if I wanted to audition, just for fun. I did just a little short film, and I liked it. I just kept doing it, and then I started getting bigger auditions for bigger roles.

I guess some kids around me had to grow up quickly, had all those problems. But I wasn't one of those kids, or around those kids, not at all.

Showing up in the lives of children is everything.

When I first went up to see my editor, I was with my agent, and my editor said, 'Well, what have you been doing all these years?' And my agent said, 'He's been in recovery. From his childhood.'

The world is not always a kind place. That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand.

At times, I feel sorry for kids who have succumbed in some kind of way to being a child actor.

I'm affected by the characters I play, and sometimes they're hard to live with.

I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be a superstar. I wanted to be on stage. I wanted to perform. I wanted to be in movies. But as you grow up, those dreams kind of fade away, and you're hit with reality, and you're like, 'Oh, not everyone can be Lil' Bow Wow?' Fine.

Most people try to isolate themselves and pretend like things are all good when a lot of times, that's not how it is.

Nick spent his first years on walks in his stroller and Snugli, playing in Berkeley parks and baby gyms and visiting zoos and aquariums. His mother and I divorced when he was 4. No child benefits from the bitterness and savagery of a divorce like ours.

We can't have children growing up feeling unloved - the price is too high for that.

Children should be kept as normal as possible. At a very young age, they are not even aware of the happenings around them. You need to do whatever you can to grow them normally.

I had suffered from depression in my childhood.

At the end of the day, you're saying lines and playing pretend. All that varies from show to show is the level of the intensity and the terms of the expectations you place on yourself.

It's kind of weird to meet people that grew up in films who are still in touch with reality.

I don't think any actors love taking their clothes off on film, unless you're an exhibitionist, which I'm certainly not. Those are the scenes that you actually dread doing. But, so much more goes into this role. As an actress, it's all about reality, and I'm not a prude. I'm not someone who judges other people for taking their clothes off for roles. I'm not going to show everything, but nudity here or there doesn't faze me.

I've never worked with an acting coach, but my parents had acting classes and I grew up around them my whole life just because I didn't have a babysitter.

The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive.

If you keep pretending you're in that book, it will make you not want to live in the life you're in.