Garry Shandling

I am pretty tenacious as a perfectionist in terms of getting something right.

I don't think I'm severely politically active. I care deeply, and I have my strong personal beliefs. I think America is dancing on thin ice. But I think it's bigger even than a political issue. I wonder about the evolution of the human race and spirit and what our goals and reasons for living are.

I like to talk on the cell when I do interviews. That way, I double my chances of getting brain cancer: from the cell phone, and from the questions.

You know it's funny that none of the regular late-night shows now use guest hosts the way Johnny did. No one talks about it much, but it's curious that they don't do it. They would each have to be asked the reason why they don't.

Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldn't be able to survive.

I'd like to do more acting.

I like going into nature and that's where I'm happiest.

There's a good chance that if you're talking to me when I'm snoring, it means I'm bored.

When I don't have a good time, it's usually because there's a stiffness that stifles creativity.

I have this very abstract idea in my head. I wouldn't even want to call it stand-up, because stand-up conjures in one's mind a comedian with a microphone standing onstage under a spotlight telling jokes to an audience. The direction I'm going in is eventually, you won't know if it's a joke or not.

I keep my scrapbooks in the car. When I come to a stoplight, I start looking through my past. Sometimes I wish the red lights were longer.

Because I am afraid of commitment. This movie certainly has some bearing and is some reflection of my real feeling about relationships, because I do have commitment issues. My friends tell me I have intimacy problems, but they don't know me, so who cares what they think?

Nobody can write better jokes putting me down than me.

I may discuss love, and I don't mind if two men fall in love, fine. Two women, fine. But I flinch when I think of two Jewish women getting together and having a child because the idea of having two Jewish mothers makes my head explode. I have one; I couldn't handle two.

The only way I would go back to hosting would be if it were something entirely new. It would prevent me from wanting to host a standard-fare kind of talk show.

I don't know why men are so fascinated with television and I think it has something to do with - if I may judge from my own father, who used to sit and stare at the TV while my mother was speaking to him - I think that's a man's way of tuning out.

Im very loyal in relationships. Even when I go out with my mom I dont look at other moms.

Carol Burnett was particularly funny. She swore for the first time on television on Larry Sanders.

It takes me so long to get tired of a man. It's women that are the problem. Don't get me wrong. I think men have their problems just as much as women.

It's not the hair on your head that matters. It's the kind of hair you have inside.

Women need to know that not all guys are going to hurt them the way that the guy did before they started dating me. I know guys I wouldn't go out with.

I'm too shy to express my sexual needs except over the phone to people I don't know.

Which is, I'm an optimist that two people can be together to work out their conflicts. And that commitment, I think, might be what love is, because they both grow from their relationship.

But I really like hosting, I think it's a strength of mine. It allows me to improvise, and I love the spontaneity of that, and I think I'm funny behind the desk when interviewing someone.

Nice guys finish first. If you don't know that, then you don't know where the finish line is.

I started boxing for exercise, and on the very first day, the trainer got in the ring with me and said, 'Whoever controls the breathing in the ring controls the fight.' I immediately passed out.

I don't know how to ground myself without the other actor present.

Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldnt be able to survive.

I once saw an elaborate landscape in a gallery, drawn in pencil, that took my breath away. Then I realized the artist probably didn't have enough confidence to use a pen.

I'm dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it.

I guess he wanted to see a little more sexual activity because in real life, in bed I think less is more and let the woman come to me. Frankly, I don't even need a woman there.

I have spent a lot of time studying the issue of relationships, how I grew up, my parents' influence on me. I've talked to a therapist,; I've looked inward spiritually at myself, and what it seems to come down to is that I'm a Sagittarius. Please don't make me reveal more than that. It's tough enough as it is.

Dogs are not people. Be leery of any woman who refers to her dogs as her 'kids,' because you'll only end up paying for their schooling.

When I give notes on a script, I say, 'Guys, I may drift, but it's part of the process.' So I'm aware that I'm drifting, but I'm grabbing a lot of stuff.

Here's the thing - I'm single, I haven't been married, I don't have kids yet. If I do have kids I would be interested to see them in my life, so here's a movie for kids and I'm in there and I'm supposed to be kind of funny for kids.

I once made love for an hour and fifteen minutes, but it was the night the clocks are set ahead.

Humor is a wonderful way to deal with our suffering because if we can laugh at our troubles, we can feel better. Thich Nhat Hanh is a special man who has helped millions with their suffering with incredible technique. But he doesn't know real suffering, because he has not dated as much as I have.

Men who betray women also betray other men. Women shouldn't feel so special.

I think I look great in green, and I'm going to start wearing more green.

I feel that everything I do in my life I can do in a shorter time than most men can. It's the quality, not the quantity.

My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don't really know me.

Everyone at a party is uncomfortable. Knowing that makes me more comfortable.

I am interested in how human beings react to crisis and conflict.

I practice safe sex - I use an airbag.

First of all, I'm not the kind of guy that likes to rehash the show and so forth and so on.

I actually think I'm more of a turtle than Verne is. Where Verne is up on two legs and moving at full speed and doesn't pull his head into the shell very often, I in reality was five or ten minutes later to every recording session.

I've never had anyone put on a puppet show to convince me of anything. And I've done a lot of stuff. I don't know that I would put the puppets on when I was pitching a show. This was the head of the studio putting a puppet show on. And I'll tell you, he wasn't bad.

I play basketball on Sundays and I'm a very spiritual guy; I read a lot of Eastern philosophy and I meditate.

I think it's one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there's so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large.

'The Larry Sanders Show,' it's actually about love, which would sound like a paradox at first. But if that love didn't exist, the darker attitudes would not play. You would have a one-dimensional, cynical show, which I don't think the show was.

Dr. Phil is hiding something. Otherwise, why wouldn't he use his last name?

I'm not a party guy. I don't carouse very much.