Top 80 Fred Armisen Quotes

I actually, legitimately feel that I’m not busy enough. I want to be so busy that it’s overwhelming.

Before ‘SNL,’ I would do stand-up, opening for Jeff Tweedy. It was worse than bombing in that people were dead silent.

When I’m hungry, I need to eat right away.

Since I was, like, an infant… I remember being in love with television. I loved listening to music. I wanted to be on records, and I wanted to be on TV.

I love painters because I don’t paint, so I get to enjoy art; I like collecting paintings.

Questlove redefined what a band can be, and Paul Shaffer and Max Weinberg really put their own spin on it. I bow down to these people. All of them.

That’s one of the great things about Los Angeles, that people just play music, and it’s all very welcoming and welcomed.

Every day, I wanna work on being a better person, not just to others but to myself.

I think Ian MacKaye is everything that I always wanted to be.

The Long Island experience is so strange. You’re a satellite around the city, so the presence of the city is always looming.

I’m obsessed with my 20s. I buy things that I wanted in my 20s. It’s weird; it’s a weird thing that I didn’t grow out of.

I can’t relax. I’m not happy unless I’m working on stuff. ‘SNL’ is always a huge workload, as enjoyable as it is.

I loooved Sleater-Kinney like a crazy person.

My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father’s culturally German, but his father was Japanese. I was raised in New York and spent two years in Rio. My parents met at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they had me there, and then we moved to New York. I’m not very familiar with Mississippi.

I have an inability to relax. I try to make every day a work day. I get pleasure from work… I try to think of sketch ideas, stand-up pieces. I am incapable of leisure and leisure time.

Hopefully there will be a day when all comedy is all robots.

There should be comedians who perform only for robots – I’m saying human comedians that only perform for robots.

People on the street comment on how handsome I am. You know, people stop and say how angular my face is.

I feel bad for everyone I’ve gone out with.

I started comedy in, like, 1998.

Music documentaries are tricky because of ‘Spinal Tap.’ That movie has stood the test of time.

I like that ‘Broad City’ exists, and I love being around at the same time as ‘Key & Peele.’ I love those guys – I just, I love their faces.

I would never play a character that wasn’t true. It’s not a moral thing; it’s just that it’s more convincing if it’s a little bit like me.

For some reason, juggling things makes everything work better. That’s just how we operate. It just makes the other project more of something to look forward to. I think the more you keep things going, the more it helps the other project.

I enjoy getting to work on ‘Saturday Night Live’, where I get to do people like David Paterson. And then, its like a different muscle to do someone like a bicycle guy on’ Portlandia’.

I’d want to direct a video for Yoko Ono. As long as I got to work with Yoko Ono someday, I’d be really happy. I just think she‘s such a great artist – it would just be so nice.

I will admit that I purposely stress myself out. But I think I like stressing myself out. There’s a glamour to, like, ‘I’ve got to get to the airport!’ I just like the caricature.

The day of parts of the country hating each other, or rivalries like that… I feel like that’s dead.

Missing something doesn’t help anything. You can only look at the future, what you can keep doing.

There’s almost no such thing as a hipster.

When you’re being mean to someone, you can feel the audience just get cold.

My mom is from Venezuela, and my dad is German and Japanese, and we lived in Brazil when I was a kid for a couple of years, and then I grew up on Long Island. I think all the traveling and all the nationalities put that stuff in my head. I was just around it a lot.

Something about Portland just really resonated with me.

I will always, no matter what, be a punk more than anything.

I think a comedian has a more specific job. Whereas a musician can fall into different categories, you know, of making background music or doing a soundtrack or wanting to be in a band or writing the song, or writing your own songs. And then comedy is a very black and white thing. You want to make people happy.

I learned at ‘SNL’ that it’s a bummer to bum people out.

Everyone knows deep in their hearts that the drums are the coolest instrument, and that a band is only as good as its drummer. So I’m all for drum solos. I’m all for drummers hamming it up. I’m all for drummers standing up and kicking over the kit.

Sometimes ‘Portlandia’ can be pretty traditional. But the stuff I’ve always loved on ‘SNL’ has always been the weirdest stuff I’ve done. The stuff that went on at 10 to 1 in the morning.

Steve Jobs was a real rock star to me. I looked forward to his products like people look forward to albums.

Surround yourself with people you like and respect; surround yourself with people you just want to be around and keep making things.

Over the years, El Perro del Mar became this artist that, every record that came out, I just loved it.

No yoga. I can barely sit down.

I would really like to do a movie. Schedule-wise I don’t know when exactly, but I think it would be great to do a Portlandia movie. Some of my favorite television shows have done it and they’ve been great. Like Monty Python. I think it would be great.

El Perro del Mar sort of accompanied my time at ‘SNL.’ To concentrate and focus, I would play the bass to one of her songs from her third album.

Everywhere I go, somebody says something to me. It’s really nice.

Fereydun, that’s my dad’s name. My grandmother, my dad’s mom, when she was pregnant, she was dating a man from Persia, a Persian gentleman. It wasn’t his child, but he was still very supportive and said, ‘Hey, this is a great name,’ and so it stuck. So that’s what she named him.

There are bands that I am friends with, who will invite me up on stage. Like Les Savy Fav, who have had me on stage, and I have played on their record. There are a couple of bands like that. Yo La Tengo has invited me to play with them.

I tend to think that there is a sophistication to everything at ‘Saturday Night Live,’ including the sketches.

Bill Hader does a really good impression of me.

Panned or not, ‘Dune‘ is a real part of science-fiction filmmaking.

Discomfort is the way to go if you want to make something you feel is worthwhile.

I was actually late to the punk movement because I was too young.

I think I was a terrible husband, I think I’m a terrible boyfriend.

I would see people on TV, or I’d see bands I really liked, and I thought, ‘I want that.’

I have a problem with sweets. I have an inability to eat a just little bit. It’s almost like I can’t even enjoy chocolate anymore – I have to stuff it into my brain, cram it into my ears.

I am opposed to vacations and leisure. I try to make every day a work day. Even if there’s nothing on my schedule, I will try do at least one task that is work-related.

The worst art is when it’s really convenient and comfy.

If something seems like a little venue, don’t treat it like that. Do it all. If you’re sort of wondering why you’re doing something at some location, just do it – any size theater, production, or whatever. It’s all helpful.

There’s something really easy and just somehow un-crowded about the Portland airport. Every time I go there I’m like, ‘Why is this so easy and sweet?’

Ever since I was really little, I started doing a – I don’t know how to put this – mentally challenged person on my street. I meant no harm by it, but I remembered how this person talked, and I did it for my mom, and she was not into it. She said, ‘You can’t do that!’ But my dad really laughed.

I travel a lot. I’ll go back and forth, you know, West Coast–East Coast, but it’s separated by segments. So it’s not a daily thing.

Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With ‘Portlandia,’ every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.

Every music journalist I’ve ever met has been stunningly beautiful.

My problem is with intimacy. That’s where I have my biggest problems.

I take any project on a month or two at a time. Meaning, I don’t think too far ahead.

My favorite album is ‘Ram’ by Paul and Linda McCartney.

Sometimes in Portland I’m like, ‘Who is funding this city?’ It’s doing great – there’s all these new shops; there’s a synthesizer store. Where is this coming from?

When punk came along, it made perfect sense to me. I found it melodic. The Clash, Buzzcocks.

I love ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and I really feel like people who have left before me have always stayed with the show. They never really quite left, which is nice. Everyone kind of stays close.

I work better when I’m juggling projects. Nothing worse than watching someone really embrace what they’re doing if they love it too much.

I wanted so badly to be in a famous band, and it was not happening. I played drums with different bands and with the Blue Man Group in Chicago, but I definitely felt like, ‘Wow, I did not picture my life being like this.’

I really like Au Revoir Simone.

There are people who are genetically made to start record labels, and I’m not one of those people. People just have it in their blood and are good at it. Corey Rusk from Touch and Go and Ian MacKaye. These are people who have made their own labels.

I want it all… fast. I want to be married, I want to live together… and then somewhere around a year or two years, I get freaked out. I freak out emotionally and then I actually feel like ‘Oh my God, who’s this stranger in my house?’

I’ve met Tony Danza. He was really nice. And he looks… I feel like he hasn’t aged. He looks exactly the same. He’s just Tony Danza. He’s exactly the same as he’s always been.

James Franco has turned his life into a real art project. In my opinion, that’s the way to live.

For me, I would get so frustrated because I would see these other bands just whip by us.

When I used to see Rick Moranis do something, to me that was immediately funny. Or George Carlin or Martin Lawrence.

As a kid, ‘The Monkees‘ was such a cool show. I had such a thrill saying, ‘OMG, I was in a sketch with one of the Monkees.’

I have the capability to have a close relationship with someone.