Nick Offerman Quotations

If you're an original thinker, you are going get told 'no' a lot, and you have to be able to hear 'no' many times from the bankers and trust that at some point, someone is going to recognize that you are an artist and not a can of soda.

Meat is a big deal in my life. I do love breakfast food, but I don't think that's extraordinary. I'm a normal American. We love eggs and meat and potatoes and gravy.

You know, it's hard to beat bacon at anytime of day. But I also am a big fan of corned beef hash.

I'm very hairy, and men in film and TV are no longer allowed to be hairy.

You know, even working actors can end up having a lot of spare time. And you can either go sit at the Starbucks and wait for your agent to call you, or you can go learn how to build a Shaker blanket chest with hand-cut dovetails.

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.

I have a Kenwood charcoal grill. In our house, if anybody is cooking, it's me. I love making burgers. I love making pork tenderloin. Lamb chops I do on the grill a lot. But you just can't beat brats.

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

I would like Americans to make things with their hands. Thomas Jefferson and I feel that makes for a much stronger nation.

I've been working steadily as an actor since around 1998. I wasn't well known in the public, but I was a dependable working journeyman.

We have such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to choice. Do you want to hike in the Alps? There are 300 pairs of shoes you can order within the next 10 minutes. You have your choice of everything.

I have a corn creamer that I love. It extracts pulp and juice from kernels, and I simmer that down into a creamed corn that has an almost mashed potato-like consistency. I add butter and hit it with chopped fresh chives at the end for an accent of color.

I have a wonderfully hedonistic appetite, and if I wasn't really strict with myself, I'd weigh 300 pounds. I'm not good with moderation.

I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.

And what we've lost sight of is that performing manual labor with your hands is one of the most incredibly satisfying and positive things you can do.

I've learned through experience that to trouble celebrities with my handshake doesn't do anybody any good.

I've had to learn and discipline myself that I'm much happier and much less depressed if I give myself a project. It's just that simple.

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.

My uncles, who are farmers in Minooka, Illinois - I grew up with them and their pickup trucks and mustaches, and to me that was masculinity: big hairy sweaty guys who could pick up a bus.

I always had a lot of confidence in my work and the unique flavor I like to bring to my characters, but you know I'm not a huge dreamer.

I come from a family of fishermen. Fishing is very important to us. We don't hunt. We're not gun folk.

I spent a lot of my youth working outside in the elements, and I kind of revel in defeating tough weather.

My wife happens to be probably the greatest working woman in comedy. I can't think of anyone who even approaches her achievements and her abilities.

When I got my job on 'Parks,' it was so dreamy, kind of unfathomable. I didn't think a job that excellent could exist for me.

When I was in high school, I would perform every year in those plays and there was something I really loved about it. But I was completely unaware that you could sort of get into an acting career.

I've never seen a theater community to rival that of Chicago. Neither New York nor L.A. has the raw talent or integrity that Chicago theater has, and I think it's because Chicago doesn't have Broadway or the film and TV business to distract it.

There have been a few occurrences where people in restaurants have sent me a rasher of bacon, which I am not going to turn my nose up at. I never let them down.

I am always so happy to be at 'SNL.' I still feel like a kid when I'm there, like I can't believe I'm watching them make the show.

I grew up among farmers in Illinois and so you always have to have the tools you might need in the eventuality of a flat tire or a broken window.

If I had more time, I'd watch more woodworking or home-improvement shows, but, not enough hours in the day.

When I got to Los Angeles, I started building cabins in peoples' yards, building post-and-beam structures and cutting the joinery for those.

I also grew up building theatrical scenery. I spent many years building scenery as a large part of my income and that allowed me to really develop my shop skills.

For years I drove a big Ford F250 pickup. That was my ride because two-thirds of my work was wood work, and I'm always driving up to Northern California, where I harvest salvaged trees.

It's funny, growing up there was never anybody around me with any kind of artistic bent.

I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him, I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If I had to pick one form of acting, it would be live theater. That's where I started; that's where I became a man, I think I'm still finishing up that job.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

When it comes to marijuana, I think it's ridiculous to live in a country that espouses freedom, liberty and equality, yet won't follow through on a philosophy that says: "If it's not hurting anybody or their property, you can do any goddamn thing you want."

When I use weed creatively, I'm much better at drawing or making something or playing music. But what I do for a living is mostly performing as an actor or writing, and for those things I need to have my faculties sharp.

Doing voice work is more like recording music that people are going to listen to. You're creating an oral experience using whatever bells and whistles you have in your voice, and you can shut your eyes and use your imagination and nobody's going to see if the faces you make don't match the voices you make. That's a lot of fun.

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.

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.

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.

"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?"

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.

I don't know what it is on an elemental level, but a beard in general evokes hedonism. It's a more lush personal grooming style. It's more comfortable and cozy; it's less sharp and angular and businesslike. I feel like a beard is more Hobbit-like, even though Hobbits themselves are clean-shaven.

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.

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

The key, I would say to any fledgling humorist starting out, is to make sure that sloppiness is part of your recipe. That way they come to expect fumbling and clumsiness and they say, "Oh, it must be a charming part of his personality."

I have a very healthy growth of both head and facial hair. People always want to attribute further superhuman powers to me. It's funny the way the audience really seems to want me, Nick the actor, to exhibit the same machismo as Ron Swanson.

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

The ultimate disguise is nothing. Nudity.

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.

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.

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

I always call myself a "student" of the guitar.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Love one another, make something with your hands, and exalt the farmer.

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

I am a saxophone player.

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

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.

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.

Shut your damn mouth.

No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do.

I awaken. I consume oxygen, then bacon, eggs and black coffee, then my wife, then bacon.

The quest for the next key art awards begins with tomorrow's hangover

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.

Whatever it is you like to do, that's the sexiest part of you.

Men and women alike, if you think that altering the tip of your nose with surgery will make you happier, I would suggest you alter something much more malleable than your flesh, like your priorities, or your friends.

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