Chris Gethard

To a crowd that loves improv, Robin Williams is like Chuck Berry.

You don't often see vulnerability on TV, especially talk shows.

When I was growing up, I think I was expected to be seen and not heard. You're this little, nerdy kid; no one wants to hear about how sad you are. Nobody wants to hear that you feel lonely.

One thing I've realized is that being a nerd has transformed. I like that it's easier to read comic books and, like, 'Lord of the Rings' now. You don't have to get punched in the chest in the gym locker room for that anymore.

I have no desire to get on a soapbox or be preachy. I don't think comedy needs to be 'brave' or 'important.'

I do know I've lived through a bunch of things that people would maybe prefer I keep behind closed doors.

I am scared of horror movies.

I think one of the things about listening is that it's always at its most powerful when it's present, when it's right here, when it's right now. And that's a lesson about improv that I think just made me a much more social person.

I think the key to improv is always listening. It's embracing. It's positivity. It's hearing things and not shutting them down.

I've seen situations where I think comics are really unrealistic about what creative expression and what the artistic freedom, what that entails.

I've said some things on stage where the crowd was like, 'Whoa, that's bad' - and I never say it again because that's the feedback I get.

I think comics do need permission to fail. I think comics do need permission to go up and try stuff.

I think I'm a very notoriously positive comic.

If I pretended to be confident all the time, that would just be a lie.

I think there's too many gay jokes in comedy and not enough honest explorations of sexuality.

Sometimes we get bored and want to shake up our format. It's a luxury we have on public access - no one cares about us. It literally doesn't matter if we fail, so sometimes we try to go really big and out of the box.

New Yorkers will be rude, but at least they do so out of the rationale that everyone around them is always slowing them down. Los Angeles, I learned, is a city full of people who have the personality of the coolest pretty boy from your eighth-grade class.

I am a stereotypical northeasterner. I'm always in a rush. I've attracted stares from out-of-towners when I've shoved past someone blocking the subway door.

Sometimes I get gigs in weird, artsy places because weird, artsy people embraced my public-access show, which I could only have done in the way I did in New York.

I know there are many things California can offer - personally, professionally, meteorologically - that New York can't. It sounds awesome.

I've taught people in improv classes, then watched them move to Los Angeles to become Emmy winners and movie stars. That experience, for anyone wondering, is both super exciting and also makes you put a microscope on your own life choices. It causes you to question why you still perform stand-up in so many Brooklyn basements.

I moved to Queens from New Jersey in 2004 and have continued to stick with New York to such a degree that when people ask me to explain it, I'm sometimes unable to provide an answer.

My sadness compels me to hide it so that people won't judge me. Seeking help would have blown my cover. Meanwhile, my mania convinces me that it's making me fun so I'll want to dive further into it. Seeking help would've ruined that good time.

I take medications every morning and night - they're my breakfast, and they're my dessert. I love them.

Part of North Jersey life is that everyone is obsessed with being tough all the time.

I always think all the other comedians in New York hate me - I'm just convinced that they all dislike me - when, generally, I think I'm a pretty well-respected guy.

Even though I live in New York, I still have this Jersey thing where I feel like I have to prove myself. I'm grateful for any chance I get to be the least talented person in the room, because it'll make me work that much harder.

What all my favorite comedians have in common is extraordinary honesty.

Creativity saved me.

I've always been really open onstage.

I'm hungry in the ways that every artist is, but I also have this extra layer. I've done a lot of things that were consciously not for money, but because I'm so convinced I'm going to die in my mid-30s, I'm like, 'That's not what's important. Doing cool stuff and having that legacy is what's important.'

I always just try to remind myself, like, at the end of the day, no matter how much pressure it is to be a TV show host, you still get to be a TV show host.

A lot of the things I loved the most growing up were, on the surface, kind of challenging or impenetrable. I loved Andy Kaufman, and half his shows, people would walk out in a rage. I love punk rock, which is notoriously music that doesn't always sound very inviting or appealing but, I think, unquestionably has the most heart, the most integrity.

I think there's enough TV that makes people feel dumb out there.

I think, in my own life, I'm pretty political. I think I have some very strong ideals, and I struggle a lot with it. I struggle a lot with feeling like, 'I have a platform; should I be saying more?'

I grew up a loser, and I always felt like one, but I turned out pretty okay. I may be living proof that you can spend your whole life feeling like you're falling down a set of steps and still maybe land on your feet at the bottom.

I think what I have learned is you can't avoid losing. You're going to strike out a million times. The whole point is not to dodge losing - it's to learn how to lose well.

I can legitimately say without being arrogant that there's probably a stretch where I was one of the better teachers of improv in the country.

The street I lived on for the first handful of years of my life was lined with modest, lower-middle-class houses with small front yards and cracked driveways - your typical North Jersey neighborhood, with all the odd hidden darkness that that implies.

As far as comedy goes, I'm endlessly inspired by Jo Firestone.

There's a teacher at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York named John Danaher. He's leading this whole group of fighters named the Danaher Death Squad, and they're revolutionizing how that world works. I actually went and signed up for classes mostly because, man, if there's innovation like that happening in New York, I want to be around it.

One of the reasons I stay in New York is because you're always around so many other types of arts, and it's easy to just get lost in it.

I will say I miss teaching improv way more than I miss performing improv.

Everyone likes to laugh. Everyone likes to dance along to some music.

Maria Bamford is someone who's really inspired me in a big way.

The one-word story about why I have a chip on my shoulder is 'bullying.'

Both creatively and organizationally, being medicated has helped me immensely.

I very classically would go into manic phases, which were as dangerous, if not more so, than the depressed phases, and I think I'd come up with the best ideas I ever had, and then the next day, I'd look at them and be like, 'This is nonsense,' because it was born out of a manic episode. What a waste of time.

The whole romanticized 'sad clown' thing, we gotta get rid of that. That has to go! That's just getting sick people to voluntarily stay sicker and sadder than they have to be.

I didn't like who I was. I spent a lot of my life regretting who I was, which is a sad thing to say.