Top 44 Paul Rust Quotes

I remember watching Quentin Tarantino accept an Academy Award for screenwriting for ‘Pulp Fiction.’ If I’d known then that 15 years later one of his movies would again be nominated for an Oscar and I’d be in it – that would be pretty crazy.

I don’t really like the term ‘honest.’

A lot of the time, a comedy script is just dialogue, and that’s the main thing you have to worry about.

My sweet spot, the stuff I like the most, is hopeful melancholy. Optimistic melancholy.

If I’m not emotionally stable, should I put myself in a relationship? Because wouldn’t that mean that I’m just using it as a distraction from my problems?

I always liked the ‘Mad Men’ philosophy where people don’t really change.

I love watching movies. That’s, like, my favorite thing to do with friends.

It’s tough – and I’m not the first person to say this – but cliches exist because they actually happen in real life.

I don’t believe in love at first sight.

I’m married now, but I fell in love with my wife because she was talented. Talent – it’s the big one.

Some people have interpreted the title of the show – ‘Love’ – as ironic. For me, it’s sincere. The idea that we have to agree with love is a genuine statement about love.

I try not to rely on pop culture references as a crutch for jokes, because then, I think, that’s when the timelessness quality is lost.

The thing I always liked about ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ was Pee-wee’s, obviously, an oddball, but nobody in that universe points a finger at him and goes, ‘Look at the weirdo!’ I think that’s why weirdo, arty kids like it so much: because it’s sort of like a utopia.

The first text I ever got was somebody breaking plans on a first date. That was, like, the worst way to be introduced to a new technology is with rejection.

It’s a lot of people’s goal to be the lead in a movie, and that was never my goal. I just wanted to be the third banana in an ensemble comedy.

Being sincere and true to yourself is a scary thing but, ultimately, a rewarding one.

I think the desire to be funny was a mixture of wanting to be liked but also wanting to throw your elbows a bit.

If you read scripts, you would see people rarely speak like that in real life, in complete sentences.

Scott Aukerman and Judd Apatow are two people who I owe a lot to, and it’s always great to work with Scott whenever I can.

Conflict comes from a person’s own actions, not what someone else does to them.

Growing up in a small town, in the Midwest, and Catholic – those are sort of three layers of repression.

Growing up in Iowa, there weren’t many people who looked like me. And then when I moved out to L.A., every guy in comedy looked like me.

‘Cannonball Run II’ – you watch that, and it looks like they’re having a good time, but it’s not necessarily a masterpiece.

In high school, I was crazy in love, and I would make handmade construction paper valentines every month for our monthly anniversaries. Then I’d go early in the morning and tape one to her car. It sounds sweet, but let’s be honest: it was a little weird. I was probably crossing some lines.

Love takes a lot of work.

Most relationships probably start with people going, ‘Meh, it’s probably best not to be embarking in this relationship.’ We do it, though, because our brains are wired to make babies or whatever.

I’m sure that it’s a universal experience, but I wonder if it gets exacerbated more in Los Angeles, where people are constantly looking over at the other people, going, ‘Why don’t I have that? I want that. Their table looks warmer.’

At one point, I just decided that it might be more creatively rewarding to put my time into writing on stuff that I could really be proud of rather than trying to get a one-episode part on ‘Modern Family’ or something.

Certainly on a date, I’ve been over-focused on, ‘Is this person comfortable or not?’ and then deciding for them that they are not comfortable and I will help them, which is death for a first date.

I come from standup and improv.

Judd Apatow and Paul Reubens are two people who I’d be more than happy to learn from because I think they’re geniuses at what they do.

Writing on ‘Love’ is so steeped in self-analysis. The writer’s room can feel like therapy.

I wrote on the fourth season of ‘Arrested Development.’

I want to be liked. Everybody wants to be liked.

I grew up loving Pee-wee Herman. I was obsessed. I was the kid at school who everyone knew was obsessed with Pee-Wee.

The Magic Castle is not a place that people know nationally, but as soon as you move to L.A., you hear people talk about it.

With Quentin Tarantino, he makes movies imagining himself as the audience. To be specific and true to what he wants resonates to people who like his movies.

I grew up in Le Mars, Iowa, and even though it’s a great place to grow up and be raised as a kid, there wasn’t a lot to do. It was fairly boring, and I think the way I either escaped the boredom or found a way to keep myself occupied was through movies and TV shows.

I would never turn down an invitation to co-write another Pee-wee Herman movie!

I think it’s sort of rare in TV shows or movies to see people being vulnerable. That’s sort of scary to an audience.

It would be easy for someone to think growing up in a small town would be like ‘Footloose’ or something, that it would be, ‘No dancing allowed!’ all the time, but it was quite the opposite. People always got excited for me and my successes and supported me even though I was a little weirdo goofball.

I remember doing this little physical gesture of holding up my foot and having my foot wave around while I held my ankle. It got a big laugh, and when people started laughing, it dumped some chemicals on my brain. It just felt so good.

Probably around junior high, I became obsessed with films.

I’m not the first person to talk about this, but L.A. is just sort of a weird city because it’s just a bunch of little towns put together under the umbrella of L.A. So people feel disconnected from each other and far apart, and in a relationship, that can also be a thing.