Nick Offerman > Quotes

“Damn it all, you have been given a life on this beautiful planet! Get off your ass and do something!”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you—and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.”
― Nick Offerman, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

“Instead of playing Draw Something, fucking draw something”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“Really, all religious teachings can be boiled down to: “Just be cool. Don’t be an asshole.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Figure out what you love to do, then figure out how to get paid to do it.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis (Google “Science”).”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“My favorite rule from Sensei was “Always maintain the attitude of a student.” When a person thinks they have finished learning, that is when bitterness and disappointment can set in, as that person will wake up every day wondering when someone is going to throw a parade in their honor for being so smart. As human beings, we, by the definition of our very natures, can never be perfect. This means that as long as we are alive and kicking, we can be improving ourselves.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Choose your favorite spade and dig a small, deep hole, located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Bury your cell phone and then find a hobby.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“I eat a bunch of spinach, but only to clean out my pipes to make room for more ribs, fool! I will submit to fruit and zucchini, yes, with gusto, so that my steak-eating machine will continue to masticate delicious charred flesh at an optimal running speed. By consuming kale, I am buying myself bonus years of life, during which I can eat a shit-ton more delicious meat. You don’t put oil in your truck because it tastes good. You do it so your truck can continue burning sweet gasoline and hauling a manly payload.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“What exactly was Jesus’ take on violent capitalism? I also have some big ideas for changing the way we think about literary morals as they pertain to legislation. Rather than suffer another attempt by the religious right to base our legalese upon the Bible, I would vote that we found it squarely upon the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. The citizens of Middle Earth had much more tolerant policies in their governing bodies. For example, Elrond was chosen to lead the elves at Rivendell not only despite his androgynous nature but most likely because of the magical leadership inherent in a well-appointed bisexual elf wizard. That’s the person you want picking shit out for your community. That’s the guy you want in charge. David Bowie or a Mormon? Not a difficult equation.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Now, there are things I like just fine about church, and I don’t just mean making money. The notion of getting together as a community to remind ourselves why we shouldn’t behave like animals is a fucking great idea.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theatre, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, “Why did this happen?,” “How did this happen?,” and “What can we do to prevent this from happening again?,” and one of the areas they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casually available to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun owners have the chance to be human and say, “Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let’s open up a conversation here.” Instead, I’m surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation , citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like dicks.”
― Nick Offerman

“I eat a bunch of spinach, but only to clean out my pipes to make room for more ribs, fool! I will submit to fruit and zucchini, yes, with gusto, so that my steak-eating machine will continue to masticate delicious charred flesh at an optimal running speed. By consuming kale, I am buying myself bonus years of life, during which I can eat a shit-ton more delicious meat.”
― nick offerman

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Pursue decency in all dealings with your fellow man and woman. Simply put? Don’t be an asshole.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“What will people say? Who fucking cares.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“Always maintain the attitude of a student. When a person thinks they have finished learning, that is when bitterness and disappointment can set in, as that person will wake up everyday wondering when someone is going to throw a parade in their honour for being so smart.”
― Nick Offerman

“Jobs that require a suit upset me. They displease me much, as our world is rife with such superficial conformity.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“I think the Bible is largely an amazing and beautiful book of fictional stories from which we can glean the most wholesome lessons about how to treat one another decently.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“If there is a God, no part of the Bible or Christian doctrine will convince me of his existence half as much as the flavor of a barbecued pork rib.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“I learned the word non-conformist in fourth grade and immediately announced that I would grow up to become one.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“The technique is: Let the others go first. At the airport, at the grocery store, at the Pleasure Chest (hey-o!). The calmer I become, the more I enjoy my day. The more I enjoy my day, the more people enjoy me and the more they want to see me in my enjoyment.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“and one of our vocabulary words was nonconformist. I just dug that word. I heard the explanation, the definition, and I felt like I had just learned about a new hero in a kick-ass Marvel comic book.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Now, there are things I like just fine about church, and I don’t just mean making money. The notion of getting together as a community to remind ourselves why we shouldn’t behave like animals is a fucking great idea. Church was also the place to get a look at all of the young ladies in the other families, the better to determine whose young chests you’d like to target with your clumsy fumbling. It’s all the other shitty parts—like when priests tell you who to vote for in a presidential race, because they’re personally opposed to a woman’s right to choose—that irk me. That’s where church crosses my line. When the clergy get too big for their britches, they take these wonderfully benevolent writings from the Bible and crumble their intended integrity by slathering them with human nature.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“It may seem a little obvious that Megan would feel that in her music or that I would feel it in woodworking, but there are so many domestic places, so many little ways that you can make your existence holy in how you choose to treat your loved ones and people in your community.”
― Nick Offerman, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
― Nick Offerman, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers

“The arithmetic is quite simple. Instead of playing Draw Something, fucking draw something! Take the cleverness you apply to Words with Friends and utilize it to make some kick-ass corn bread. Corn Bread with Friends - try that game.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

“If there is a God, no part of the Bible or Christian doctrine will convince me of his existence half as much as the flavor of a barbecued pork rib. It is in that juicy snack that I can perhaps begin to glean a divine design, because that shit is delicious in a manner that can be accurately described as “heavenly.”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“A step further. Creationism. If you want to go in so deep as to ignore all of the advances and hard facts that SCIENCE and LEARNING have provided us in the field of biological evolution and instead profess that the creation story, written by men from their holy visions, about how the Christian deity spinning the world together out of the void in the magic of Genesis describes the true origin of the universe, that is your business. Terrific. It’s a cool story, don’t get me wrong; I love magic. Check out Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which won a Newbery Medal. For the record, I don’t believe the book of Genesis ever won one of those. You and your fellow creationists profess belief in a magical story. You are welcome to do so. Sing and chant, and eat crackers and drink wine that you claim are magically infused with the blood and flesh of your church’s original grand wizard, the Prince of Peace. I personally think that’s just a touch squirrelly, but that’s your business, not mine. You will not be punished for those beliefs in our nation of individual freedoms. But I do think the vast majority of your fellow Americans would appreciate it, kind creationists, if you silly motherfuckers would keep that bullshit out of our schools. Your preferred fairy tales have no place in a children’s classroom or textbook that professes to be teaching our youngsters what is REAL. Jesus Christ, it’s irrefutably un-American, people!”
― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Principles for Delicious Living

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
― Nick Offerman, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside