Chris D'Elia

I would never say that I'm good at being on dates. I think I like to try to find a connection with somebody, like, that's my main thing. I think that maybe if you find a connection with a girl on a date, that's like the No. 1 thing, and then it's like, 'Cool, that was a great date.'

I'm a selfish person, and I'm going onstage to have a good time, and I'd love if you want to be a part of it. So if people don't get it, they're wrong. I think they're wrong, and I think they either don't want to have a good time or they just don't like my style.

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.