62 Notable Rainn Wilson Quotes

I was terrified, lost. Like most moments of intense personal tragedy, it was both heartbreaking and a little bit ridiculous.

Like

  

I know what I look like - a weird, sad clown puppet. I'm fine with that.

Like

  

Scotland is the Canada of England!

  

What other people think of you is none of your business; what you think of other people is ALL of your business.

Think

  

Well, mostly I just want to be an actor. I love being an actor, and I don't want to be a spokesman for anything, I don't want to do anything crazy or fancy like that.

Like

  

My mom was an actress in the local Seattle theater doing experimental plays.

  

I had bohemian parents in Seattle in the last '60s living in a houseboat. My dad wrote science fiction novels and painted big murals and oil paintings.

  

I was this weird misfit guy from suburban Seattle, I never really fit in, and then I became a drama geek, among all the other different kinds of geek that I was growing up, and I found I was pretty good at it.

Never

  

The Baha'i celebrity, or the Belebrity, is a character actor with a big head playing an annoying creep on a TV show.

Character

  

I'm about as big a star as the Baha'i faith has got, which is pretty pathetic.

  

I would love to see some comedies about loser women.

  

Some of the biggest movie stars in the world are essentially characters.

  

I think God has a tremendous sense of humor.

Think

  

I'm lucky to have a wife and a child that keep me grounded.

Me

  

You meet people in Hollywood that are famous, and you're not sure what they got famous for.

  

A guy may wear a suit and have a high-paying job and appear very mature, but essentially, he's a 14-year-old boy.

  

I was a total dork in high school.

  

My dad wanted to name me after Rainier Maria Rilke, the poet.

Me

  

And I do believe that the way to change a society, to uplift people - not just their spirit, but to uplift their society and economic base - is through education.

  

I think that charity is a tricky thing, because a lot of times, people equate charity with handouts. I don't believe in handouts.

Think

  

My brain is so anxiety-prone, like a pinball machine. If I don't get up in the morning and focus my thinking, my breathing, and my being for about 12 minutes, I'm just a screwball all day long.

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We've seen that there are a lot of people out there - teenagers in Topeka, housewives in Long Island, millionaire Internet start-up moguls - that all want to connect with each other about what it is to be human.

  

Absolutely father knows best, always do what your fathers say, and if you can't find one then just ask me, I am a father and I know best.

Me

  

My whole thing is I just always wanted to be a working actor and I just wanted to stop waiting tables.

  

My body has been making women laugh for the last 20 years and I'm happy to continue to oblige.

  

In every decade rock and roll starts to get very serious and navel gazing and kind of self serious and every once and a while it kind of needs a kick in the pants.

  

Singing and dancing is not just for the cast of 'Glee'. We can wake up doing both and have it be a natural expression of who we are.

Singing

  

One thing I really want to do is - I spent ten years in New York doing theater before I moved to L.A. to do TV and film. I'd really like to go to back New York and do some theater.

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I don't want to sound pretentious, but I love art, I like to go to museums, and I like to read books.

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I like being a Baha'i who has an out-there sense of humor. God gives us talents and faculties, and making people laugh is one of mine.

Like

  

So much about religion has to do with rigid, sacrosanct preciousness. I don't live my life that way, and I don't feel that's what Baha'u'llah teaches.

Life

  

Some of the most morally conscious, kindest, most compassionate people are in the entertainment industry, people who want to affect the world and make it a better place through telling human, heartfelt stories.

  

I am all for controlling guns.

  

'SoulPancake' is a website that I founded with a couple of friends, and it is for exploring life's big questions.

Life

  

Apparently 'The Office' plays in Brazil. Who would've thought that Brazilians would identify with a bunch of pasty white Scrantonians in a paper company? But the Brazilians I've met have really loved the show.

  

The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.

  

I joined an acting class in my junior year in high school. I'd always wanted to try it.

  

My dad was always such a frustrated artist. He always worked very hard to support his family, doing a bunch of ridiculous jobs. He wanted to be a painter, but then he also wrote science-fiction novels in his spare time.

Family , Time

  

I remember being unemployed and walking the East Village streets for many years, constantly checking my voice mail on pay phones, hoping for an audition.

  

I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing.

Character , Me

  

I think definitely people know me from playing creeps and weirdos, and I'm definitely looking to expand my range.

Me , Think

  

What's interesting is the show allows for the awkward pauses to be captured, which makes it stylistically unique, especially for American audiences.

  

Well, Dwight was born to be No. 2 and I don't think he would know what to do as a leader. But he loves following. He would have made a great fascist.

Think

  

I've always been terrible on regular sitcoms with lots of jokes. I don't know how to tell jokes.

  

I think Dwight loves being number two. I don't think he has any desire to be number one. He wants to be number two no matter where he goes. It's like Avis. 'We try harder.' That's Dwight.

Like , Think

  

Ralph Waldo Emerson would definitely be my homeboy.

  

Pretty much anybody who's ever worked can relate to our show.

  

Dwight is a sad clown. You've seen those paintings of sad clown.

  

Music is universal too. Even deaf people like to dance, love rhythm, and can kind of pick it up.

Like , Music

  

The bonds we create in the household are the most important and lasting. Savor them; they're sacred.

  

I came to realize I did believe in God. I couldn't conceive of a universe without someone overseeing it in a compassionate way.

  

I have an eight-year-old child, and I literally can't wrap my mind around the kind of grief that must be felt when you lose a child.

  

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

  

The greatest thing ever in the history of the world and of all of human endeavor from time immemorial is stories.

Time

  

There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go.

Time

  

I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great part of what it is to be human.

Experience , Think

  

The great challenge working on this show for me is wearing polyester all day long and having the worst haircut known to man at the top of my head and sitting under fluorescent lights. That is America, people. Polyester, bad haircuts, under fluorescent lights.

Me

  

There's like ten minutes when it's like, 'Okay, wait, who is this guy again?' And then, you know, I just put on the calculator watch and the glasses, and just be all, you know, inappropriate. And then it just works out fine.

Like

  

I found it very easy to transform into creeps and weirdos and losers and goof-balls, and I'm happy to play eccentric kinds of characters, and I have a great affinity for the outsider, but I definitely am about expanding my range as well.

  

Life is suffering. Life is not resistance to suffering. The point of life is to suffer. This is why we're here: We're here to suffer. I believe in a higher power that compassionately allows suffering for us as a race, to grow and mature.

Life

  

I really wanted to do something positive on the Internet. I wanted to try to get young people talking about, thinking about, life's big questions-make it cool and OK to wonder about the heart, the soul and free will and God and death and big topics like that, big human topics.

Life , Like

  

The founder of the Mona Foundation actually knew my dad for years, and the more I learned about it, the more I realized I really found the perfect charity. It sponsors schools and educational initiatives all over the planet.