Louis C. K. Thinking Quotations

There are people that really live by doing the right thing, but I don't know what that is, I'm really curious about that. I'm really curious about what people think they're doing when they're doing something evil, casually. I think it's really interesting, that we benefit from suffering so much, and we excuse ourselves from it.

Some things I think are very conservative, or very liberal. I think when someone falls into one category for everything, I'm very suspicious. It doesn't make sense to me that you'd have the same solution to every issue.

Talking is always positive. That's why I talk too much.

I think you have to try and fail, because failure gets you closer to what you're good at.

I think I'm past any window where I'm suddenly going to become surprisingly ripped so that people go, 'Oh, my God, what happened to you?'

I don't think women are better than men, I think men are a lot worse than women.

I don't think it makes any sense to try to get anyone to not talk.

I think one reason TV has always done well is because there is something comforting where you kind of know what you're going to be taken through.

Whenever I've encountered a Christian saying, 'Why don't you stop talking like that so I can hear you?' I think, 'Well you're the one putting the earmuffs on, but I wish you could hear me because I like you.'

Plenty of crazy people in New York. There are so many crazy people here, I think it's like one out of every one person is completely out of their mind.

I wish I could keep a journal. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something.

I used to like people more, but now I have children and that changes your life in a lot of ways. Like you spend time with people you never would have chosen to spend time with, not in a million years. I spend whole days with people, I'm like, "I never would have hung out with you. I didn't choose you. Our children chose each other based on no criteria by the way. They're the same size. They don't care who they make me hang out with."

I just don't trust any of it. Every time I read something about how there's been another ridiculous climb of the Dow Jones, there's a part of me that goes, "This can't be good." None of this is real money. You know what I mean? It's not like there's actually more of anything. It's just ideas. When people are getting richer and richer but they're not actually producing anything, it can't end well.

I've started to kind of hate people, and it's not because I have anything against them. It's just, I enjoy it. It's recreation.

God is like a shitty girlfriend.

If you do something and people think you're stupid, just go for crazy. You get more respect that way because nobody likes stupid people.

I ate too much and masturbated too recently, you know? It's bad to like jerk off and run out the door, 'cause you run into somebody. "Oh, she knows..." You got to take some time alone to process the shame.

I am really tired of looking at my hips. I'm seriously really tired of standing naked in the mirror and staring at my hips for hours and hours while muttering, "You hips. You hips need to get it together."

Out of the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead. There are way more dead people, and you're all gonna die and then you're gonna be dead for way longer than you're alive. Like that's mostly what you're ever gonna be. You're just dead people that didn't die yet.

I just love learning. I think learning is how you live. The verb of my life is learning.

I know I'm getting old because there will be times when I'm not even doing anything and I'll think, 'I need to go wipe my ass right now.'

I killed my Facebook page years ago because time clicking around is just dead time. Your brain isn't resting and it isn't doing. I think people have to get their heads around this thing. All this unmitigated input is hurting folks.

My show is sort of a short-film anthology, and I'm able to tell little stories that don't necessarily carry a whole episode in terms of narrative. I like the audience not being sure what they're getting. I think it's more fun to watch something when you're discovering it as you go along.

There's nowhere I won't go. As long as it's horribly, horribly true and/or wrong.

When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.

You ever go to shop for tuna, and it says "dolphin safe", and you look at it and kind of go, "Yeah, but"-like somehow you think it's not going to be as good? Like, "I want to do the right thing-but it's probably kind of bland without the dolphin."

If you're older, you're smarter. I just believe that. If you're in an argument with someone older than you, you should listen to 'em. Even if they're wrong, their wrongness is rooted in more information than you have.

Some people think it's demeaning to victims if you ever say anything out-loud about sexual abuse of children. I don't know if that's true.

You have to be able to do a bunch of things at once, and not think about things you're not doing while you're doing other things. You have to be disciplined about not trying to do everything, all at the same time. It's hard and fun.

People are too afraid of uptown. A lot of people will tell you, like, "Don't go to Harlem. You can never go there. 'Cause as soon as you get there, they kill you." That's what people think. As soon as you arrive in Harlem, someone just stabs you in the face right away. That's people's image of Harlem: just everyone standing around waiting for lost white people to kill all day. "Did you see any? I didn't either."

If you think everything you've done is great, you're probably dumb.

I'm close to my audience. I think I have more tools in my box than other guys who might try it. Also, I know how to do this stuff. I know how to write and shoot and edit. I'm technically adept and that helped with the website. You need a big skill set.

Well, I think likability is an overused word. I don't watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they're compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.

I've had two great years, probably five good years. So I had 20 years of just kind of uncertainty and suffering and ego destruction and poverty. All these things. There's no way I'm ever going to catch up to the misery years. It's impossible... If I don't do anything dumb or I don't get a disease or something, and then I've got to five to eight years I think where it'll really be great and then it will start to degenerate like uranium, you know?

You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling [unsure] and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.