Fred Armisen Quotations

My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his father was Japanese.

Even when I go do comedy stuff live, I can still feel the drummer in me about to go onstage.

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'.

When I first started going to Portland, people told me about Stumptown. They were like 'Oh, it's the best coffee,'and I thought, 'How good could it really be?' I'm like, 'Sure, great, uh... I'd love to see it.' But then when I went, it truly, I am not kidding, is the best coffee I have ever had.

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 Tango has invited me to play with them.

I'm so glad cities have personalities, just like people have personalities. That's something that makes me smile.

I try to maintain a high level of coolness. Which means I've gotta look at lot of magazines. I've gotta look at a lot of ads to see what people want to wear.

Chalkboards being used inside the restaurant seem to be a good sign that the proprietors are proud of their food, and that's kind of nice, actually - it's a nice personal touch.

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.

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've always been a fan of instructional videos. The bass-player ones are insane. The music on them is fascinating. It's not something you hear on CDs or would really ever play in bands. You listen to it and are like, 'What is happening?' It's this blizzard of notes in weird time signatures, and they're trying to teach you that.

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.

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

I spent a lot of time lifting my drums into a van, playing to ten people night after night. I can't complain about anything now.

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?'

Bill Hader does a really good impression of me.

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

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 feel bad for everyone I've gone out with.

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

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.

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

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

At 'SNL' there's framed pictures of all the cast members, and it starts with Dan Aykroyd. It's linear. It just keeps going through all these people, and then you're at the end of it.

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.

like an aging Pete Townshend kind of guy.

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.

I think it comes off better on stage.

When I was growing up, records meant everything to me,

When people say that L.A. doesn't have a culture, I think it really does: a very old culture, and very specific. There's streets named after entertainers, and statues of entertainers, and it's great. Entertainment is still art, even if it makes billions of dollars. So it's like a city built on entertainment, and art in a way.

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?'

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.

Prince is my favorite ever. I've liked Prince since... It's been a really long time. Even in junior high. I used to only like punk for a while, and I had all these rules for what kinds of groups were cool, and who was not cool, but as soon as I saw this one Prince video... It just broke all those rules. I was like, 'I love this no matter what.'

It was like, here comes a joke. Here's the joke. I just told a joke!

I'm drawn to punk. I'm drawn to samba a bit. I don't think there's a type of music I'm not drawn to. Lykke Li I really like. Holy Sons I still can't get enough of.

I know I'm going to be happy way later in the future, knowing that's the way I conducted myself.

I loved our [music] discussion. I live for discussions like that. It's my favorite thing because it means that people care about music, and actually have an opinion. I feel like it's dying. Everyone is just really like, they take a step back, but to actually have conviction about what's good and bad: love it.

That smile on Stive Jobs face ... My impersonation came from being a fan.

I met Steve Jobs once. In '06? He had a sense of humor.

Everyone goes through all kinds of relationship situations. I'm lucky that I get to be on two comedy shows [during divorce].

People are always nice, so I can't complain. My name used to be SNL! More and more, people call me by my name.

I lived in Chicago, but the music I was inspired by was from D. C.

I started comedy in like 1998.

The more I keep myself occupied and jump from thing to thing, the more I think it enriches both.

I like it when people are driven. I love that in any field of work, in architecture or whatever. Like Lorne Michaels - he pays attention to every detail.

I wish I was one of those people who could write script after script and pages and pages. I can only aspire to do that.

I'm a fan of Talking Heads going way back.

Just a lot of those bands [like The Blue Jean Committee] started off in blues, and then they all transformed into other kinds.

If someone can write great music... Paul McCartney is a genius. He's so prolific. All we should do is bow down to Paul McCartney.

If there is a blues song, it just goes in one ear and out the other. But other than that, if it stays with you and when we are all 90, we're going to look back at those songs, and it's going to be emotional. And when someone plays it, and you know it, and you're going to go, "I know that song and I love it."

"Macarena" is a great song. If music is something you can remember - the worst crime music can do is to be forgettable.

Someday maybe I'll go back and see what the Deep South is like.

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 still feel lucky whenever I hear a director say, "Action!" Because then I think, "Whoa, I'm really in the movies. This is a real thing happening." I've never not been enthralled by that. I still love it. I still love hearing it, and I feel really lucky all the time.

I don't miss anything ever. Because to me, missing something is like going backward a little bit. I don't miss being in a punk band. For me, 'SNL' is like... this is gonna sound overly dramatic, but... the way I am, it feels like I'm a soldier, so it was like, 'What do you want me to do? Put me anywhere. Do you want me to do these sketches? Great.'

I came away from 'Saturday Night Live' feeling very well represented. I felt, and I still feel like, they let me do so much stuff that I wanted to do. Stuff that I almost didn't even know what it was.

I thrive most when I have to juggle things.

In my opinion, there's this new phenomenon where guys used to talk about cars a lot in the past. But, more and more it's becoming them talking about recording studios.

Portland is where young people go to retire.

There's something that I can't describe about the city [Portland] that I really love - just physically - how it feels to walk around there, and have coffee there. Also, the way that it's a little overcast sometimes. Something about Portland just really resonated with me.

When people say that L.A. doesn't have a culture, I think it really does: a very old culture, and very specific. There's streets named after entertainers, and statues of entertainers, and it's great. Entertainment is still art, even if it makes billions of dollars. So it's like a city built on entertainment, and art in a way.

Sometimes I think I'm a really interesting guy.

I loooved Sleater-Kinney like a crazy person.

[Paul McCartney] never, at the time, was going back to leaning back on the roots of his old band. He always built upon where he was, which was in London. And he didn't overuse synthesizers. He used them just enough. It's such a cool sound.

Remember that there's no one way of doing things. ... If you just get a hammer and hit it really hard, whatever it is, I guarantee you it'll open.

Avoid people who tell you that something you want to do is not possible.

I don't think there's an archetype for the Justin Bieber fan. A Bieber fan just looks like an American. You wouldn't even need a costume to try and resemble one.