Patton Oswalt

In acting and improv, the best way to be memorable is to try to make everyone else in the scene funnier

As you get older, what you learn is the best way to make the whole scene funnier and thus make yourself more memorable is if everyone is trying to make each other funnier in the scene. If you're all setting each other up and the scene starts cooking and then everyone remembers the event of the scene and they remember that you were part of this amazing scene. But if everyone's trying to bulldozer one another... you'll get a funny moment, but the scene will die.

Clever comedians will always find a way to thrive despite PC or 'woke' culture

Whenever a new stricture comes along, there's always someone that can then come along and find a cool way around it that actually advances things. ... Now it's the PC woke people trying to tamper everything down. People find clever ways around it. There's always the push and then the push through. ... Our job is to find the clever way around it. The clever way around it is to not throw a temper tantrum.

The Star Wars and Simpsons fanbases are the hardest to please because their 'corporate culture' is built on the idea that they are owed everything

Is the Star Wars fan base the hardest fan base to please? It's up there. I think it's up there with the Simpsons fan base. ... The corporate culture of some of these other fandoms is, 'I am owed everything.' It's the line from The Simpsons when the comic book guy is like, 'it's the worst episode ever, and I feel like they owe me an apology.' They've given you years of entertainment for free, and it just goes, 'worst episode ever.' You just want to be angry.

The KFC Famous Bowl is a 'failure pile' that represents how you eat when you are suicidal

I keep seeing people say the phrase 'failure pile in the sadness bowl.' It's how I described the Kentucky Fried Chicken Famous Bowl where they just Kentucky Fried Chicken gave up and go, 'let's just put our menu in a bowl and covered it in cheese and gravy.' They created an entree that is how you eat when you're suicidal. And America said, 'yes, finally, that's what I want.'

The Godfather is a manual for men to articulate how they have to live in the world

That movie [The Godfather] is a way for men to articulate how they have to live in the world. ... There's so many lines in there... literally, 'these aren't the droids you're looking for' [Star Wars] is now like part of a phrase, but the Godfather phrases like 'go to the mattresses'—it's how hard are you willing to commit to winning this battle?

Hatred is for the young; by age 50, you understand people too well to truly hate anyone anymore

You're watching a guy [at 50] embracing 50 and being annoyed with the fact that he actually understands too much, and it's hard to truly hate anything anymore because you know even when someone's being a dick, you maybe know why they're being a dick. You're like, oh, I'm just too old to have hatred anymore. Hatred's for the young. I miss it.