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Humor Is His Defense Mechanism, So That Would Allow Me To Talk About Some Serious Subjects, But Get A Lot Of Hilarious Jokes In.
-Judd Apatow
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Humor Is His Defense

Judd Apatow
...
Humor Is His Defense Mechanism, So That Would Allow Me To Talk About Some Serious Subjects, But Get A Lot Of Hilarious Jokes In.

Understanding the Quote: "humor is his defense mechanism, so that would allow me to talk..."

This quote by Judd Apatow reflects deeply on the theme of serious. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Serious, Jokes, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Judd Apatow interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow is celebrated for insightful thoughts on serious and jokes. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Serious
Jokes
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Thinking
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People
Trying
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Good Day
Bad Day
I Don't Think It Matters What The Frequency Is Of Me Writing Or Directing A Movie. It Doesn't Really Matter To Anybody Else. I'm Just Trying To Put Good Things Out There.
Writing
Thinking
Trying
You Can Do Weird Things On Tv - There Are Happy Stories, Sad Stories, Dark Stories. But With A Movie, It Always Has To End Satisfying. Unless You're The Coen Brothers, And It Ends With Somebody Getting Shot In The Head.
Brother
Dark
Stories
I Wanted To See How Funny I Could Be Without Making The Choice That Every 10 Minutes Something Big And Visual Had To Happen.
Choices
Minutes
Bigs
I Very Rarely Made Any Move To Direct Anything. I Didn't Have Any Faith In Myself.
Moving
Made
Direct
If You Make A Bad Movie About Stand-up, Then Comedians Will Mock You For The Rest Of Your Life.
Comedian
Rest Of Your Life
Bad Movies
Nowadays, When Kids Decide They Like An Artist, They'll Absorb Everything That Artist Has Ever Done In A Single Night.
Kids
Artist
Night
I Still Feel Like A Weird Kid Who Is About To Take A Punch In The Face. So, I Think It's Permanent.
Kids
Thinking
Faces
All Of My Jokes Were About Not Being Able To Meet Anybody. I Didn't Have Any Insight Into Anything - Even My Own Insecurities.
Insecurity
Able
Insight
When You Make A Movie, You Just Send It Off Into The World. You Never Actually Live It With The Crowd.
World
Crowds
When I Was Very Young, I Started To Make Friends With Much, Much Older People. So When I Was Twenty, My Friends Were Fifty, And I Never Really Went Through Forty Because I Would Watch Them Die And I Would Feel Younger. So You Make Friends With Older People And You Will Always Feel Young No Matter What.
People
Twenties
Watches
I Feel Like Superbad And Freaks And Geeks Are Somewhat Timeless. That's Always Gratifying, When You Feel Like 30 Years In The Future, People Will Still Get It, And It Won't Seem Creaky. It Won't Come Across Like The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
Years
People
Freak
It's Funny, Now There Are So Many Bands That I Can Never Remember Any Of Their Names. Maybe It's Because I'm Old.
Names
Band
Remember
I Like To Shoot Scenes Where I Can See The Beginning, Middle And End Of The Entire Scene. But, When You Edit A Movie Together, You Can Just Cut Right Into The Middle. You Don't Need To See Them Walk Into The Room And Put Their Jacket On The Chair. There's Always A Lot Of Shoe Leather That You Can Remove.
Cutting
Shoes
Together
I Don't Want To Be Ordinary. I'm Willing To Do The Work. I'm Willing To Suffer The Indignities Of Comedy Because I Want To Be Great. I Don't Want To Just Be Good. I Want To Be Great.
Suffering
Ordinary
Want
The Ones [comedies] That I Always Liked, Whether It's Terms Of Endearment, Broadcast News, Or Fast Times Of Ridgemont High, They Were All About Two Hours, Or A Little Bit Over Two Hours. With That Extra 15 Or 20 Minutes, You Can Get To Real Character And You're Not Just Stuck In Plot.
Real
Character
Two
I'm Always Talking To People. It's Not That Complicated. I Just Find Somebody And Say, "do You Have Any Ideas." If They Do, We Just Start Thinking Things Around.
Thinking
Talking
Ideas
I Always See Other People As Predecessors And Admire Them.
People
Admire
Predecessors
I Love Magazines And Film Critics, So I Eat It Up. I'm Not One Of Those People Who Says 'i Never Read Anything.' I Generally Read All Of It.
Film Critics
People
Magazines
I Test The Movies A Lot, And If The Audience Says They Love The Movie, We Know We're On The Right Track. And If They Tell Me They Hate It, I Try To Figure Out What I've Done Wrong. But Every Time Out, The Audience Wants Me To Go Deeper, They Want To Know More About The Characters, And They Don't Want These Movies To Be Shallow. So They Really Urge Me To Tell Them A Complicated Story, And Then When I Do So, They're Thrilled
Hate
Character
Track
If The Movie's Not Communicating, It's Not Working.
Communicate
Ifs
There Was Definitely A Period When I Just Felt Out Of Sync With Earth.
Earth
Sync
Periods
Maybe You Just Get So Attached To The Music Of Your Youth That You Think It's Better Than What's Coming Out Now.
Thinking
Youth
Coming Out
'the Night Of.' I Pray There Will Be More.
Night
Praying
I Pray
For A Long Time, Tv Was Just The Land Of Handsome, Beautiful People, And Now It's The Opposite.
Beautiful
Land
Opposites
The Audience Doesn't Care That Most Of Happened. They Just Want A Good Movie.
Good Movie
Care
Audience
I Used To Bug All Of The Comedians For Interviews, And When People Want To Talk To Me, Sometimes I'm Very Receptive And Sometimes I Say No. Sometimes If I Say No, I Think, "if They're Smart, They'll Figure Out How To Not Accept This No."
Smart
Thinking
People
Most Comedians Weren't Great Athletes; That Was The Way They Got Noticed In High School.
Athlete
School
Comedian
I Remember Before I Did My Hbo Special, Chris [rock] Screamed At Me - In A Loving Way, But Still. He Was Like, "you Need To Do 200 Shows In A Row And A Month Straight On The Road Before You Even Think About Recording A Special!" And I Had Literally Booked Two Weeks On The Road And Then Went Right Into The Recording. It Put Me In A Panic, But It Also Made Me Work Harder And Made Me Realize That Everyone Works Differently, And That's Okay.
Hard Work
Thinking
Hbo
I Think Jim [carrey], In The Best Possible Way, Thought, "i Need To Do Different Things To Establish To The Audience That I'm Not Going To Do The Same Thing Every Time."
Thinking
Different
Needs
The Only Thing I Knew In The World As A Little Kid Was Comedy. And No Other Kids In My School Cared About It At All. There Was No One To Talk About It With. You Know, We're In A Geek Culture Now Where Comedy Is So Giant. I'm One Of The People That, You Know, Works On Funny Or Die. And There Is Just A Giant Culture Of Comedy Nerds. But Back Then, I Was Alone, And I Had A Little Confidence About It Because I Felt Like, This Is My Thing, This Is The Only Thing That Only I Know About.
School
Kids
People
It Was Always The Most Fun Thing In The World To Think Of A Joke Area And Talk About It With Someone Like Jim Carrey, And Then He Would Get On Stage Fearlessly And Tear The House Down. That's Something I Always Enjoyed. It Also Allowed Me To Not Be Terrified.
Fun
Thinking
House
People Talk About Universal Intelligence ... I'm Reticent To Believe Almost Anything, Just Because My Parents Weren't Religious At All, But That's When I Feel It. People Talk About Being In The "flow."
Religious
Believe
People
Parents Don't Realize That When They Teach You About The Holocaust Too Early, It Ruins You For Life.
Holocaust
Parent
Ruins
Watching Shows On Netflix Is A Different Experience Because Most People Are Sitting There For Three To Five Hours. Very Few People Even Watch One Episode. So It's Not Like A Movie Theater Where You Want To The Movies To Be Shorter So You Can Go Urinate. You Can Pause And Urinate At Home, And If Something Is Longer, You're Allowed To Stop And Eat Breakfast And Then Watch Eight More Episodes.
Home
Different Experiences
Eight
I Have To Go Back To Vinyl Every Once In Awhile, Even If My Kids Don't Want To Hear It. I'm Much More Likely To Be Listening To Wilco Or The Avett Brothers.
Brother
Kids
Listening
I Like Working With People On Their First Movies. I Think That You Never Get That Level Of Effort Again. And I Think That Most People Only Have A Couple Of Amazing Stories From Their Lives, So You're Getting The Best Of Them.
Couple
Thinking
People
I Was Listening To Tommy Chong Talking About How He Feels Like There Is Like A Creative Flow Happening And How Certain People Just Know How To Hook Into The Pipe. He Played Music With Jimi Hendrix And Felt That He Was Personally Connected To Some Higher Intelligence Or Creativity.
Creativity
Talking
People
All My Cuts Are Always About Three Hours, At The Start, Mainly Because Any Scene In The Movie That's 90 Seconds, I Probably Shot A Five-minute Version Of. If You Just Extrapolate That Through The Whole Movie, I Have A Very Long Version Of Every Scene, Usually Because, If There's One Funny Joke, I'll Shoot Five Because I Don't Know If The One I Like Is Going To Work. I'll Get Back-ups Because My Biggest Fear Is To Be In Previews, Testing The Movie, And A Joke Doesn't Work, But I Have No Way To Fix It Because I Have No Other Line.
Cutting
Long
Three
You Know, I'm A Big Comedy Fan.
Fans
Comedy
Bigs
In My Work, There Is A Lot Of Storytelling. The Storytelling Is Not A New Thing. Back In The [howard] Thurston Days, The [harry] Houdini Days, The [harry] Blackstone Days, It Was Stories, But The Stories Were, "we're Going To The Egyptian Temples, And We're Going To Vanish The Prince Of Thebes," And, "on My Last Trip To The Orient ..."
One Day
Stories
Lasts
I'm Making A Movie About Relationships, And I'm Surrounded By Guys Scared Of Talking To Girls.
Girl
Talking
Guy
Back Then, You Seemed Like A Crazy Person When You Were Trying To Push The Boundaries Of Network Tv. People Looked At You, And They Were Offended By The Fact That You Didn't Follow The Generic Rules Of What Was Expected On Network Tv.
Crazy
People
Trying
There's Something So Scary About Trying Out New Material And Being Completely Comfortable Jumping Into The Abyss With A Comedic Idea.
Jumping
Ideas
Scary
I Bring People On To The Movies To Type And To Help Punch Up And Look At Things. But A Lot Of It Is, You Want Fun People To Be Around, To Put You In A Good Mood, To Try And Access Your Creative Place.
Fun
People
Creative
I Put On A Big Show When I Write Something I Think Is Funny.
Writing
Thinking
Bigs
Back In The Old Days, Everyone Was Shocked If A Band Had A Sponsor For Their Tour. Now, Bob Dylan Can Do A Commercial For Victoria's Secret And People Don't Really Blink; The Beatles' Songs Are In All Sorts Of Commercials These Days And It Doesn't Seem To Offend Anybody. The Times Are Changing.
Song
Times Are Changing
People
I Always Felt As A Kid That I Was Underappreciated, Invisible Or Weird, But I've Always Secretly Thought People Would One Day Appreciate What Is Different About Me. I'm Always Putting That Message Out There.
Kids
People
Appreciate
I'm Just Trying To Be Truthful And Collaborate With People Who Have Interesting Things To Say.
People
Interesting
Trying
I Was Bad At Sports And Picked Last Every Day. I Couldn't Quite Figure Out What My Role Was In The Social Order, So I Decided I Was Interested In Comedy. And What Was Then Interesting Was, Nobody Else Was Interested In It At All. I Didn't Find One Friend Who Was Interested In Comedy Until I Moved To California And Met Other Comedians. And Suddenly I Knew Hundreds Of People Who Knew As Much About Sctv As I Did. But It Took Me 20 Years To Find Those People.
Sports
People
Interesting
No Matter How Much You Love Someone, On A Bad Day, You Could Say Something Terrible. All Of The Little Things That You Are Saving To Say, That You're Mad About But Never Express, Sometimes Come Out, All At Once. We All Have These Terrible Moments. That's Just Part Of Being Human.
Bad Day
Mad
Matter
Penn [jillette] And Teller And I Get Along Very Well. We Can Call Each Other And Say, "i'm Working On This Classic Effect. Please, I'd Like To Do It For A While." We'll All Respect It. There Are People We Don't Get Along With, But Mostly There Is A Respect Amongst The Group.
People
Groups
Classic
When Jim Carrey Signed On To Star In [the Cable Guy], And Then They Asked Me To Produce It, I Made A Very Brief Plea To Direct - Which Was Rejected Really As Quickly As Anything Can Be.
Stars
Guy
Made
I Remember The Time Review [on The Hit And Run]said That There Wasn't One Laugh In It. And I Had Watched The Movie 50 Times With Audiences, And It Always Played Great. There Was Certainly A Moment Where You Could Tell The Audience Was Like, "wow, This Is Really Getting Weird."
Running
Laughing
Wow
In Terms Of The Emotional Underpinning, If You've Been In Relationships, You Understand What's Happening.
Emotional
Term
Happenings
The First Comedians I Became Fascinated With Were The Marx Brothers. I Couldn't Get Enough Of Them. Later In Life, I Thought, "well, Maybe It's Because They Were So Rebellious And They Were Just Flipping The Bird To Society And All The Rules We're Supposed To Follow." They Were Saying That None Of It Is Fair.
Brother
Later In Life
Bird
I Think The World Is Changing And All That Matters Is That I'm Creating Things.
Thinking
World
I Wrote For Roseanne. I Wrote Her Stand-up Act With Her. I Wrote With Tom Arnold. There Was A Period When I Was Working With Them Pretty Steadily. But I Would Take Brief Gigs Here And There.
Here And There
Gigs
Periods
The Moment You Think Of A Joke Is The Best Moment.
Thinking
Moments
Best Moments
I Don't Think I'm Going To Get So Mature That I Lose Touch With The Whatever Wounded Part Of Myself That Feels The Need To Be Funny. I'm Already Old Enough That I Realize That's Not Going To Happen.
Thinking
Needs
Realizing
Literally, My Last Call Was With David Blaine, Congratulating Him On His Show. I Have A Camaraderie With David.
Lasts
Camaraderie
Shows
I Really Think More About Being Honest And Truthful About Feelings And How People Behave For The Movies That I Direct, But I Also Love Movies Like Zohan And Anchorman, Just Balls To The Wall, How Much Can You Make People Laugh In One 90 Minute Period.
Anchorman
Wall
Thinking
The Only Thing Worse Than A Crappy Tv Show Which Paddy Chayevsky Couldn't Have Conceived In His Worst Nightmare Is Two Megacorps Fighting Over Who Thought Of The Crappy Show First.
Fighting
Tv Shows
Two
I Did Get Good Enough To Get On Hbo's Young Comedians Special, But I Certainly Wasn't The Person Who Got Launched Off Of Hbo's Young Comedians Special. That Would Be Ray Romano That Year. I Had Some Semi-intelligent Jokes, But When People Would See Me, They Would Think, "oh, That's A Good Writer." No One Would Ever Have Said, "oh, That's A Good Performer."
Intelligent
Thinking
Hbo
That's Very Important To Me As Well: Presentation And How People Perceive You, The Visual Of How Things Look, Your Posture. I Learned That From [bob] Fosse And Jerome Robbins, From All The Great Theater Directors And The Busby Berkeleys. You Overdeliver: Visually, Emotionally.
People
Important
Bob
I Always Feel Like I'm Very Far From My Potential.
Feels
My Dad Was A Big Fan Of Comedy. He Wanted To Be A Stand-up. He Loved Lenny [bruce]. He Also Loved Lord Buckley And Jazz And Stuff. He Was A Hipster. My Parents Were Kind Of Beatnik-y, You Know, For Salt Lake City. But My Humor, I Think, Came From Wanting To Disarm People Before They Hit Me.
Dad
Hipster
Thinking
I Loved The Idea That I Could Write A Joke And Someone Else Would Have To Take The Risk Of Performing It.
Writing
Ideas
Risk
I Start Thinking About The Next Movie Before It's A Success, So I Can Never Have One Moment Of Happiness Or Peace. I'm Instantly Thinking About The Next One.
Thinking
Next
Moments
I Think That Everything I Do Tends To Root For The Underdog.
Thinking
Roots
Underdog
I Definitely Learned To Embrace The Quiet Moments Onstage From Garry Shandling - Relaxing And Not Fighting With The Crowd, Not Raising Your Voice, Not Ever Trying To Win Them Over.
Fighting
Winning
Quiet Moments
Television Is Much More Difficult Because At Every Moment, The Network Can Force You To Change Things Based On Their Belief About What Would Make It Popular. You’re In A Constant Debate With A Gun To Your Head, And The Gun Is Cancellation. So It’s Hard To Win The Arguments.
Gun
Winning
Television
So Many People Are In Comedy Because Of Difficult Mothers Or Broken Homes.
Mother
Home
People
If Anything Is Leaking, I Try To Plug The Hole.
Trying
Holes
Plugs
It's A Pretty Humiliating Thing When You Get Picked Last Every Day In Gym Class And Then At Lunchtime All The Kids Play Sports And You Get Picked Last. At The Time I Just Thought, "this Is Awful," Because It Defines You As A Weak Person. It Defines You With Girls And If You're Bad At Sports, You Get Into This Funny Cycle Where The Ball Never Gets To You Because Now You're In The Worst Position, You're In Deep Right Field, So You Can Never Prove That You Got Better, So The Cycle Lasts Forever.
Girl
Sports
Kids
It's What I Always Dreamed Of: That You Can Make Tv And Everyone Would Get Out Of Your Way And You Follow Your Vision Without Watering It Down.
Vision
Way
Tvs
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