My kids are so dramatically different, but it's not like I would trade one in or like there's one I would pick over the other ones. I know that sounds like I'm bullshitting. I also have five of them so I barely know them.
It's difficult to parent one kid, let alone five! It's insane. It's this strange, overwhelming mess that I would not trade for anything. I think it's more difficult in New York City. It's not like we can hop in the minivan and go somewhere. I don't own a car. It's chaos anywhere. Being a parent is difficult. Being a son and a daughter is difficult. It's a human relationship.
We all take Mother's Day seriously and then it's like a month later, a bunch of kids get together and say, "I guess we should do this for the old man, too." Father Day's is weird. It's like celebrating Darth Vader's birthday. It's odd I think. Even the gifts we give dads. Like neckties, which are just like a silk noose. Or books. Would you ever want someone from another generation to give you a book?
The amount of guilt you deal with as a parent is pretty profound. It's a constant balancing act. I'm an ambitious person, but when I became a father, ambition had a different hold on me. Providing for my kids was important, but the superficial ambition drifted away.
I live in New York City, but it doesn't matter if you're in any large, metropolitan area, there's kind of a little bit of survival-of-the-fittest, so when you encounter kindness or people going out of their way in an empathetic way, it's almost startling.
Now the Thanksgiving meal is just so unnecessarily difficult. I mean even mashed potatoes - it's like the most difficult kind of, you know, medieval idea. All right, instead of just cooking them, why don't you spend, like, eight hours peeling them and then we'll have to mash them up. It feels like prison labor, really.
Thanksgiving is the most complicated meal you can think of. Every night, dinner is just pasta. It's just different shapes of pasta.
Thanksgiving, you know - Thanksgiving - it's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is we overeat.
I love my career, but I feel like you've got to babysit a lot of aspects of things. Assuming that things will be handled properly is just naive. But I think that's anyone's life, right? Even if you're running a construction site, it doesn't matter if you've been doing it for 20 years, you're still going to be blindsided by someone's incompetence or indifference.
Don't get caught up in other people's expectations. Don't take anything for granted, either.
I've always been somebody that it takes me longer to learn things, but once I learn them... I'm like a quarterback that plays best in the fourth quarter.
I think that there's part of me that feels like maybe I should have been more social.
Be more assertive with what you want to do.
Stand-up comedy in the end, unlike the rest of the entertainment industry, is a meritocracy. There's a certain level of undeniability you can work toward.
I don't understand the fashion industry and the appeal of it. I understand that there are some people who think it's important to them, and they're designers, they're artists, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of our culture that's caught up in that and the red carpet stuff. It seems like there's a disproportionate amount of attention placed on that.
I feel like, even in this crazy world of Trump getting elected and these things that really kind of caught me off-guard, I feel like I understand less than I did.
Award shows are really silly. I'm very happy for the people that win the awards, and I can say they're really silly, but I would love to get one. So I also know wasting time on that is pointless.
One thing I'm afraid of is not taking advantage of opportunities. I feel like these are kind of gifts.
Stand-up is so rewarding, and I enjoy the acting opportunities I've had, but the only time I really feel bad is when I feel like I have this manufactured belief that I should be doing something else or there should be some type of recognition. On an intellectual level, I know it's stupid.
I'm afraid of a couple things. I'm afraid of getting caught up in other people's expectations, because I feel like that's an ongoing battle.
When you have five little kids, you're not going to open Mindy Kaling's latest book. You're playing with your kids.
I love writing stand-up so much and tinkering and looking for ideas.
I feel guilty if I'm not reading books, but I read scripts of movies or things that I know I'm committed to that I'm going to do the project. I tell myself, "I'm going to read this script like six times," and I only read it the initial time.
Boutique hotels are great, but they get too cute. Some hotels have shoe polish. It's like, come on, this isn't 1960. No one's polishing their shoes.
I like to stay in a hotel where it's a dome of silence. I can sit in my room and do nothing.
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