Norm Macdonald (2018)

I guess Richard Simmons and Terri Schiavo, I'm now using Bob Hope's old writers.

I did my podcast in order to see if I could host a talk show. And I think I succeeded and have now been offered a talk show by Netflix. All the podcasts were rehearsals.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm only in negotiations. There's no show yet.

I'm speechless.

You are my people!

Ideas exist outside of man. And drift into one's consciousness if one allows it. None of these ideas are mine, I only take them from the ether and put them back out in a more solid form.

He's the greatest.

I like the cursing that makes no sense and interjects itself, like "cock motherfucking son of a cunt bitch."

I thought I was comedian level funny during my first year of comedy. Five years I realized I wasn't actually that level of funny. But five years after that I realized I was comedian level funny. So 10 years into my standup.

Razor thin close.

haha Canadians have a tendency to steal American holidays and make them before the American holidays. It's very a very cunning form of fest that only Canadians can pull off.

Of all time, Richard Pryor. At this moment, Brian Regan.

No I'm absolutely sincere.

Due to multiple herniated discs, my pain level on a normal day is through the roof.

I will do that.

I'm reading "Search for Lost Time" by Marcel Proust.

I find Pynchon to be the most knowing writer of our time.

I have more fun hosting my talk show because I've already perfected standup.

Yes, a movie adaptation is worked on as we speak. You could send the book to Mark Gurvitz at Brillstein Grey and I'll sign it for you.

Richard Pryor, me, Steve Martin, Brian Regan.

There are people who want to make it but I've yet to make up my mind.

A person once said to me that the homeless never get touched and that without human touch, the mind veers toward madness. So the homeless people I approach, I always give my money to, whatever it is I have, and I always hug them or touch them.

I did do Burt Reynolds and that's why I created celebrity Jeopardy so I could do my Burt Reynolds. No one ever mentioned that I played Burt Reynolds as a 35 year old.

Yes I do. I'm constantly talking to my phone. Whenever an idea occurs. Sometimes I don't say enough. I'll dictate "large coffee cup" and have no idea of what I thought was funny about that subject.

You start with a Mexican guy and you pay him a $1.35.

He returned to host the show when I was a cast member. And I did a character that pinched girls's asses, and said "YOU LOVE IT." And he's a great fan of it and thought it was going to be a huge character. And then it didn't get past dress rehearsal. And he said, "That's showbiz."

The best part is standing on the stage with your comedy being able to turn a passive audience into an unruly mob. The worst part of standup comedy is the insane pressure on the spine and lower back from standing up for so many hundreds of hours.

Yes I love Dennis Miller. Dennis gave me my first job for which I will be forever indebted. He's been kind to me since and I would love to have him on the podcast.

I'm not allowed to say. But it was one of the first two. And they invited me to discuss my book. Yes he liked it very much but had critical things to say that will help me out in future books. It was a very kind gesture.

I've never messed with a talk show host. I'm just trying to make my segment as spontaneous and interesting as I saw talk show guests be when I was a boy.

I was told later that Stephen was uncomfortable but I didn't mean to. The conversation just flowed to British children's entertainers being largely pedophiles and I don't know why Stephen Merchant was tiptoeing around it.

Imagine a woman in a sports car, impossibly beautiful, speeding down a winding road and looking out her window at a man who is skiing down a mountaintop. And then the man comes to a stop, snow flies from his feet. The two lock eyes. And both know each will be the other's entire. And the car speeds off.

I'm wearing sweatpants, and a T-shirt with beef stew spilled all over it. I had some beef stew for breakfast.

Count Chocula. The least-respected, least-feared of all vampires.

Immortality.

I love all those books. I do hate meta but I was forced into by the scriptures of convention. I was hired to write a memoir, but secretly wrote a novel so I had to use the techniques of meta to mask it. I did it so well the New York Times called it a nonfiction.

In this day of political correctness, I suppose I should say nine grain.

But I won't. It's white bread.

I separate their work completely from their transgressions. Everything about their work is extraordinary. Everything about their transgressions is utterly ordinary.

I would consider commentating golf which I think I can do better than anyone except Jim Nantz

Yes.

haha you clearly don't understand the nature of pseudonyms but I will publicize the book under a thick disguise.

The two greatest living writers are Cormac McCarthy and Alice Munro, so I would suggest a collection of Alice Munro short stories and McCarthey's masterpiece "The Road." My personal favorites are "War and Peace" and "The Death of Ivan Ilych" both by Tolstoy.

Oh no. I suffered from panic attacks. Panic attacks as opposed to anxiety attacks are a feeling of impending doom. When one strikes you, you're paralyzed. One struck me directly before I had to do Weekend Update, and I understood I needed help. My doctor prescribed klonopin and advised me to take half a pill before any performance.

I presume one person has but none before this morning.

I don't like any impressions of me but since Jimmy Fallon is the best impersonator I've ever met, when he does it I must believe that that's what I sound like.

I play a high limit stud at Hollywood Park and in Vegas at the Aria.

Well, it depends on your view I suppose but it's been my experience is that life's purpose is to suffer. To abide the inevitable pain and to bear it in a noble way.

I will say about Bob Saget that he's so recognized it's amazing. And people come up to him and say "You're Bob Saget." And he says "thank you." I guess that's what fame is.