Quotes By Hal Sparks

As a stand up, and often in acting, there is no place for the most intense feelings. Rage, genuine sorrow, naked hope... These things don't fit on a comedy stage and if you act you'll get to express them once in a while. Music is a place for the intensely personal.

I try to be as ignorant about things as I can.

People think that the arts are optional and they aren't. They teach a level of emotional depth that's equally important to mathematic skill. You can replace some math skills with a calculator if you know how to operate the thing, but there's no calculator for human interaction.

Most 'reality' shows aren't reality at all. They're game shows with no prize. Like 'Rock of Love.' His aren't genuine feelings. Then again, Bob Barker didn't really care whether or not you won the toaster. Sorry to shatter everyone's dreams.

Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer.

Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song. Until I heard 'Little Earthquakes' all my lyrics used really obvious analogies like rain for tears.

I'm named after a computer and grew up really interested in them.

It's better to waste money than time. You can always get more money.

The name 'Charmageddon' actually comes from a social technique that I use. Which is, you know, literally obliterating people with charm so that you can get away with saying stuff that no one else could ever get away with, you know?

If I could sew comedy and philosophy together, then I've done a good job. The primary goal is always going to be laughs and the secondary goal is always going to be saying something without it being a lecture. I think it's important to have substance for what you're saying.

Other kids would sneak out of the house to go to parties and do untoward things. I was sneaking out to do standup downtown. It paid off.

'Cold Case Files' and similar shows do bang up business, which points to a certain thirst for details in the viewership, but it seems like all the news chat shows continue to force the myth that Americans can't stand detail and have no interest in an idea that can't fit on a bumper sticker.

Vegas has the Whitman's Sampler of audiences. They come from all different places, so you have to do some crowd psychology. You have to find the heartbeat of the room. It doesn't shift my jokes, but it shifts my timing and my attention.

Growing up in Kentucky, I used to hang out with four running buddies as a kid - 6, 10, and 11 years old. Two of them would later come out, and so 50 percent of my friends as a kid were gay.

Mainly, when I go see a show, unfortunately it's more industrial espionage than it is going to actually enjoy a show.

If I have anything, it's tenacity.

The pop musicians often leave meaning in the dust and substitute it for cartoons. The deeper artists - the grunge artists in the world and the emoticon people - tend to leave all of the happiness out of life like it just doesn't exist.

Someone needs to remind American CEOs that if you can't run a company that is innovative, financially sound and doesn't poison the rest of us, You can't run a company.

I'm a writer, so I like dissecting things.

You'd think after 8 years of things called 'The Patriot Act' and 'No Child Left Behind' they would know that we have figured out the 'Call it what it ain't' PR ploy by now, but... um... no.

It's better to waste money, than it is to waste time. You can always get more money.

I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that.

I like struggle.

Political and social change is always a stagger-step process. One step forward, two steps back. They want you to give up.

The important thing is having genuine regard for your audience.

If you are for freedom and equal rights, which we hear a lot of talk about these days, then you have to include the LGBTQ community in that. And if you're not willing to put your time where your mouth is, then I don't know quite what you mean by commitment in your life.

Jerry Springer' is just kind of the chubby, redneck version of throwing Christians to the lions.

All musicians need a day job in the beginning. Unless they still live with their parents, I guess. I'm just lucky that my day job is simply another form of art.

I'm as heterosexual as any person need be. I'm open about my relationships - or lack thereof - in my own life, because I want to make the case that gay isn't contagious. It's not something that you can catch or learn or choose.

Truth be told, ginormous portions have become a pet peeve of mine.