40 Quotes by B. J. Novak

I have blue eyes, and before I knew anything about fashion - I'm talking about the second grade - I learned I would get a compliment if I wore a blue shirt.

I remember my mum coming into my bedroom when I was lying awake one night, and she asked what I was thinking of... And I was telling her about the inventions I would invent, and she said, 'Can't you ever just think stupid thoughts?'

If a work alienates a reader, should that be counted against it? I respect people that love 'Ulysses,' for example, but I'm on the other side of the argument. 'Ulysses' would be better if it seduced me. But I probably have the minority point of view.

'The Office' is less a comedy than so many other 'comedies' that have been on the air. It's really about the balance between what is real and what is comic.

I think I am very proud of being associated with quality things. So if I were massively famous for doing massively beloved things, yeah, that sounds great.

It feels as though a very disproportionate number of main characters are writers, because that's what the writer knows. Fair enough. But nothing bothers me more in a movie than an actor playing a writer, and you just know he's not a writer. Writers recognize other writers. Ethan Hawke is too hot to be a writer.

My goal is not to make popular things. My goal is to make the things I love as popular as I can make them.

I like jeans, but I think in 100 years it's going to be crazy when we look back at the fact that everyone, every day for about 60 years straight, wore stiff blue pants as their default. Why?

I have one really nice watch. It's a white-face, stainless-steel Rolex Daytona. I wear it a lot. I got that in the middle of 'The Office.' All the guys in the writers' room were like, 'Let's all get a nice watch.' We were too busy to upgrade our lives in a big way, but we thought this was a nice symbolic gesture.