My family has schoolteachers and librarians, and I think people who teach are probably some of our greatest American heroes. Certainly, underpaid and unsung.

I'm enjoying the opportunity that Parks And Recreation affords me to exploit my own soapbox agenda, which is to try to encourage people to make things with their hands.

I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him, I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.

I have a wonderfully hedonistic appetite, and if I wasn't really strict with myself, I'd weigh 300 pounds. I'm not good with moderation.

If I had more time, I'd watch more woodworking or home-improvement shows, but, not enough hours in the day.

If your shirt isn't tucked into your pants, then your pants are tucked into your shirt.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don't teach a man to fish and you feed yourself. He's a grown man, fishing's not that hard.

Follow your gut, make a choice, and throw yourself into it. If you make a mistake, then you have merely afforded yourself a valuable lesson.

If properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza.

If you want to be happy in life, consider yourself a student. Every day of your life, think: how can I improve?

Figure out what you love to do, then figure out how to get paid to do it.

Putting aside your blatant patriarchal biases in assuming the necessary presence of a male familial figurehead, yes, I had a nice brunch, thanks.

Your dreams are closer than you think.

You can't focus on other people's careers. Everybody is different.

These people [Bush Administration] are for the most part rip-off artists. Notice that they're all gas and oil men from Cheney, to the two Bushes; I think Rumsfeld also.

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

In grade school I was a complete geek. You know, there's always the kid who's too short, the one who wears glasses, the kid who's not athletic. Well, I was all three.

There are no shortcuts because there is no end

I read assiduously. I kept in touch with my species.

We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.

Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.