Nick Offerman famous quotes

If your shirt isn't tucked into your pants, then your pants are tucked into your shirt.
-- Nick Offerman

#Pants #Shirts

I don't put a great deal of stock in art trophies.
-- Nick Offerman

#Art #Trophies #Deals

If properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza.
-- Nick Offerman

#New York #Style #Chicago

I always drastically changed my look for each role. It's gotten a little tedious in real life, also, because there's no hiding.
-- Nick Offerman

#Real #Roles #Looks

Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis.
-- Nick Offerman

#Marijuana #Alcohol #Body

When I was in fourth grade, we were learning vocabulary words, and the word nonconformist came up. The teacher said, "It's somebody who whatever everybody is doing, they do the opposite." I remember raising my hand and saying, "Mrs. Christiansen, I would like to be a nonconformist."
-- Nick Offerman

#Teacher #Opposites #Vocabulary

If I put down my tweeter machine for a minute, I actually can communicate with people. As an aside, astonishingly, I just started doing Twitter.
-- Nick Offerman

#People #Machines #Minutes

Not only do I recommend [Wendell] Berry to anyone who will talk to me for more than seven seconds, but I buy his books in quantity and send them to people. I bought a few dozen of his newest, "Our Only World."
-- Nick Offerman

#Book #People #Berries

When I was a kid, I lived in this small town way out in the country. We had three TV channels and one radio station. I couldn't even get my hands on good comic books. My aunt, who is a librarian, gave me Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie," and Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia." They were such incredible treasures to have in my somewhat mundane country life.
-- Nick Offerman

#Country #Book #Kids

I first read [Wendell Berry] short-story collections, "Fidelity" and then "Watch with Me." They just knocked my socks off. The characters and the fellowship of the small town reminded me of my own small town in Illinois.Then I discovered that, much like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, that all of Berry's fiction was centered in this same town.
-- Nick Offerman

#Character #Illinois #Watches

Before people figured out I was funny, I got cast quite a bit as either a rapist or serial killer or the guy who catches those people.
-- Nick Offerman

#People #Guy #Serial Killer

I made an executive decision in college when I learned how behind I was in the world of books, films, and music because of my rural upbringing. I really reduced the amount of time that sports took up in my life.I still have some Faulkner to get through.
-- Nick Offerman

#Sports #Book #College

I'm always pleased that I managed to stay out of jail throughout my tenure in Chicago.
-- Nick Offerman

#Jail #Chicago #Tenure

I think that purity creates not only a higher level of artistic vision but a purer work ethic.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Work Ethic #Vision

Being a man of the theater and a hedonist, I find the idea of building coffins very romantic.
-- Nick Offerman

#Men #Ideas #Coffins

I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist.
-- Nick Offerman

#Writing #Men #Laughing

People keep referring to me as a standup, and that just doesn't sit well with me because a lot of my friends are standups and they're brilliant at writing jokes, and I'm not.
-- Nick Offerman

#Writing #People #Brilliant

People are afraid that they're going to upset somebody on top, and so there's a real sense of, I've got to be quiet, I don't want to be fired.
-- Nick Offerman

#Real #People #Upset

Of course smartphones are brilliant inventions, but the nefarious thing about Twitter and other social media is that it starts to fill all the gaps in your day. I quickly become an addict.
-- Nick Offerman

#Media #Smartphones #Gaps

It was on a van ride home from the movie set that everything came together. I realized I had to get off Twitter. It just struck me that I couldn't stop everyone else from doing it, but I could certainly stop myself.
-- Nick Offerman

#Home #Together #Vans

Whenever I have a stubborn position on something, I take a deep breath and swallow myself.
-- Nick Offerman

#Stubborn #Take A Deep Breath #Deep Breath

I learned in my early years in the theater that I would never become the guy on top. I'll never create a show; I don't have a brain expansive enough to see the whole picture, in a way that would behoove anyone.
-- Nick Offerman

#Years #Guy #Brain

The world is split into two halves: the bacon, and the bacon eaters.
-- Nick Offerman

#Life Changing #Two #Splits

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don't teach a man to fish and you feed yourself. He's a grown man, fishing's not that hard.
-- Nick Offerman

#Life Changing #Men #Fishing

No one will ever ask me to sing because it's beautiful. My secret is hiding my musicianship behind humor.
-- Nick Offerman

#Beautiful #Secret #Hiding

I won't read a new graphic comic novel until the writer has completed the entire series. I got burned a few times when I got turned on to a book, plowed through it only to find out the author was in the middle of writing the next.
-- Nick Offerman

#Book #Writing #Next

My wife, the actress Megan Mullally, was an English major at Northwestern University and loves fiction. Like so many things in my life, she curates things for me. For example, I have the daunting prospect of Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" waiting for me when I get through my current reading pile.
-- Nick Offerman

#Reading #Wife #Waiting

I'm obsessed with the Victorian era and the British Royal Navy... I'd love to play a troubled sailor or captain or a boatman on a three masted ship.
-- Nick Offerman

#Play #Navy #Captains

I was drinking a lot of bourbon. I was miserable. I was starting to get work, but it wasn't remotely satisfying. It was garbage compared to the theater I was doing.
-- Nick Offerman

#Drinking #Garbage #Miserable

I never went too long without a job. The problem was a lot of the early jobs are almost more demoralizing than unemployment.
-- Nick Offerman

#Jobs #Long #Unemployment

The ultimate disguise is nothing. Nudity.
-- Nick Offerman

#Nudity #Disguise #Ultimate

Branding is quite an important thing. As an artist, you want to be able to explore facets of yourself.
-- Nick Offerman

#Artist #Important #Want

We realized that the world of popular culture had been creating the perfect candidate for many years: the female champion of the universe.
-- Nick Offerman

#Years #Creating #Perfect

Children are so egocentric - they want to watch their lives, and not yours.
-- Nick Offerman

#Children #Want #Watches

I really thought that I'd be doing Shakespeare, honest to God. I did not foresee the whole action television thing. That was God's joke.
-- Nick Offerman

#Television #Honest #Action

I think it's fascinating that I receive attention for what people perceive to be a level of manliness or machismo, when amongst my family of farmers and paramedics and regular Americans, I'm kind of the sissy in my family.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #People #Attention

My family has schoolteachers and librarians, and I think people who teach are probably some of our greatest American heroes. Certainly, underpaid and unsung.
-- Nick Offerman

#Hero #Thinking #People

How lucky my life is that I have two arms, and two legs, and ten fingers with which to make things out of wood.
-- Nick Offerman

#Two #Legs #Arms

I became very interested [in philosophy] after attending the U.N. Conference on sustainable development in Brazil.I'm very concerned about climate change and the world reaching a tipping point. And, I see other people who really just want to survive to make it to the next election, rather than making means of change.
-- Nick Offerman

#Philosophy #Mean #People

It's taken me a lot of years to peel away my own layers.
-- Nick Offerman

#Taken #Years #Layers

I always call myself a "student" of the guitar.
-- Nick Offerman

#Guitar #Students

When I [first] went to university, I was doing foreign languages, because I had done them since I was 13 years old. I had done French and German. I picked up Italian, just sort of blasted through the exams, [and then] took off overseas, because I wanted to be an actor. I thought, "I'm just not academic." I'm not very competitive, in terms of acting. But since going back to university, I've realized, I am highly competitive.
-- Nick Offerman

#Italian #Years #Acting

It's irrelevant to me if other people know who I am. I'm just, I'm really happy. It calms me down, too. If you're on top of an oilrig, fighting with politicians, or whatever - you need a bit of wisdom to realize that you're not always right, or that you're not always being reasonable, or you're not always listening.
-- Nick Offerman

#Fighting #Who I Am #People

When I first met with agents, they said, "Okay, you're going to play plumbers and mechanics and bus drivers and farmers. Go."
-- Nick Offerman

#Play #Agents #Firsts

I come from the theater, where I got into acting because I love transforming. I love nothing more than to be unrecognizable.
-- Nick Offerman

#Acting #Theater #Transforming

I've split my life between a few different disciplines.
-- Nick Offerman

#Discipline #Splits #Different

It's hard to swallow when people say, "Oh my God, you're a master of something." I say, "No, I'm actually a student of that. I could turn you on to websites for 25 masters, and you'll quickly see that I am their disciple."
-- Nick Offerman

#People #Students #Masters

My career is inexplicable to me. So far I've just been not getting fired despite being myself.
-- Nick Offerman

#Careers #Being Myself #Inexplicable

I feel it's important to point out that I've earned my humility by being a jackass - like, I trip and fall on my face and say, "Oh, right. Don't think you're a big shot, because you've got a bloody nose now." So it's hard to say.
-- Nick Offerman

#Fall #Humility #Thinking

A lot of people find themselves in the entertainment business - or perhaps society steers them toward it - because they're beautiful.
-- Nick Offerman

#Beautiful #People #Entertainment

My education began in theater school, and it continues to this day. I just continued learning to be a better performer.
-- Nick Offerman

#School #Theater #Performers

I just always had a penchant for performing for people.I'm a jackass clown.
-- Nick Offerman

#People #Clown #Performing

Let's just say I can never be cast again after Ron Swanson. Then I have a life of theater and woodworking and my wife to look forward to, and that doesn't make me anything but very happy.
-- Nick Offerman

#Wife #Looks #Woodworking

The fact that I have a job that people even watch is an incredible gift.
-- Nick Offerman

#Jobs #People #Watches

I don't get nominated, and I have to say, I've probably gotten the greatest mass of press in my life through not getting nominated. It's definitely been a winning situation as far as I'm concerned.
-- Nick Offerman

#Winning #Mass #Situation

I always call performing live "giving the people the medicine," because when you're engaged in it, you can feel the sort of soul magic being exchanged between the performer and the audience.
-- Nick Offerman

#Medicine #Giving #People

I have a ridiculously beautiful wife who's super sexy, and as long as she's happy with me, I don't need to look in the mirror and think, "How do I stack up next to Bradley Cooper? Would Cooper rock this shirt?" Doesn't matter. He does not have your wife. You do.
-- Nick Offerman

#Beautiful #Sexy #Thinking

When I hear young people today complain about being bored - and the things that keep them from being bored are generally exclusively videogames and/or computer pastimes - I just try to encourage them to go outside.
-- Nick Offerman

#Bored #People #Trying

I keep having these bros come up to me and say, "I used to watch you when I was a fetus," and I just want to kill them.
-- Nick Offerman

#Watches #Fetus #Want

I like to play women who are not strong at all, because, there's certainly plenty of myself that is no kind of a warrior.
-- Nick Offerman

#Strong #Warrior #Play

"I don't ever want to try to be a 'cute guy.' I want to be Charles Laughton, or Oliver Reed, or Lon Cheney. That's way more fun for me." And once I flipped that switch, that's another thing I've taken off my shoulders, where I never have to worry about, "Do I look good?"
-- Nick Offerman

#Cute #Fun #Taken

If you don't look at yourself and evaluate it, you instead see how the world's reacting to it.
-- Nick Offerman

#Looks #World #Reacting

When I arrive in Los Angeles in the entertainment community, and I use implements like a shovel and a hammer, our society has distanced itself so far from working with its hands that those incredibly pedestrian skills are perceived as somehow being extraordinary.
-- Nick Offerman

#Hands #Skills #Community

I think the whole thing is kind of sad, honestly, in the same way that our civilization - particularly the consumers of pop culture - has grown so used to an emasculated, bare-chested leading man that something like simply growing a mustache can impress people.
-- Nick Offerman

#Men #Thinking #Civilization

If you always have something in your life that you're trying to improve upon, then every day you have a reason to get out of bed, and you have a reason to achieve something and feel good.
-- Nick Offerman

#Feel Good #Trying #Bed

I really bridled when Parks And Rec became popular and woodworking publications wanted me to do stuff with them.
-- Nick Offerman

#Parks #Woodworking #Stuff

Actually, I'm not super-kickass at a lot of things.
-- Nick Offerman

Jack London is a very generous description of my small hiking, bicycling, and canoeing habit. I myself feel like a weak urbanite a lot of the time, because lots of my friends are incredible outdoorsmen and women.
-- Nick Offerman

#Hiking #London #Incredibles

I think all these great comforts that come from the human condition of trying to make things easier on ourselves also have these pitfalls, where things become so easy that we forget how enjoyable building a fence can be.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Trying #Comfort

I think what makes so many other actors miserable is focusing completely on making other plans. They're obsessed with their haircut and their headshot and their agent, their IMDB profile or whatever.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Actors #Agents

One of the most poignant pieces of recent science fiction for me was the portrayal of the adults in the Pixar film WALL-E. I feel like we're on the cusp of becoming fat babies in floating chairs being fed everything in shake form, and I feel like I am as prone to laziness as anybody.
-- Nick Offerman

#Baby #Wall #Adults

I think that laziness in many ways is the human condition, and that's what has led us to this place where, as we've developed technology.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Technology #Way

When we think of an actor, we think of a tanned, frosted-tipped, model-looking guy. We don't think of a plumber.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Guy #Actors

Auditioning for television shows - to find a guy who has a lot of experience as a laborer is a bit of an anomaly. We do exist.I know several other actors who have made their living, instead of a waitress job, framing houses or blacktopping roads.
-- Nick Offerman

#Jobs #House #Guy

I'm enjoying the opportunity that Parks And Recreation affords me to exploit my own soapbox agenda, which is to try to encourage people to make things with their hands.
-- Nick Offerman

#Opportunity #Hands #People

I'm quite excited to not play a Xena type character - it's probably closer to me than any character I've ever played.
-- Nick Offerman

#Character #Play #Excited

Just stand up for your principals and be loyal to your friends and family.
-- Nick Offerman

#Life Changing #Family And Friends #Loyal

Don't use barbiturates before going on stage. And be honest.
-- Nick Offerman

#Life Changing #Use #Honest

Damn it all, you have been given a life on this beautiful planet! Get off your ***** and do something!
-- Nick Offerman

#Beautiful #Ass #Planets

Really, all religious teachings can be boiled down to: “Just be cool. Don’t be an asshole.
-- Nick Offerman

#Religious #Teaching #Being Cool

I learned the word non-conformist in fourth grade and immediately announced that I would grow up to become one.
-- Nick Offerman

#Growing Up #Grades #Fourth Grade

Figure out what you love to do, then figure out how to get paid to do it.
-- Nick Offerman

#Figures

Jobs that require a suit upset me. They displease me much, as our world is rife with such superficial conformity.
-- Nick Offerman

#Jobs #Our World #Upset

Once you have a PhD, every meeting you go to becomes a doctor's appointment.
-- Nick Offerman

#Doctors #Phds #Meetings

Technically, we're all half centaur.
-- Nick Offerman

#Centaurs #Half

With all of the visual distraction constantly inundating us in the form of our devices and screens, I really derive a great deal of pleasure from watching the sun rise and set, admiring clouds as they change shape across the sky, watching tree leaves and blossoms undulate in the breeze....these treats foment an ocular-cleansing refreshment to my way of thinking.
-- Nick Offerman

#Thinking #Clouds #Sky

I'm a very intermediate sax player, but now that Rob Lowe is on my show, I had to cop to him. Like, 'Dude your ridiculous fake sax playing [in St. Elmo's Fire] inspired me to pick up a horn.'
-- Nick Offerman

#Player #Fire #Fake

Shut your damn mouth.
-- Nick Offerman

#Life Changing #Mouths