Darrell Hammond > Quotes

“My brilliant psychiatrist Dr. K. had told me that the only way to move on from trauma is forgiveness, giving up the right to hit back harder than you were hit in the first place.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked: Tales Of Stand-Up, Saturday Night Live, And Other Mind-Altering Mayhem

“I dreamed that I woke up and there was a little girl, not more than three or four years old, standing outside my window in the snow. It was dark, and she was crying and afraid. There was something familiar about her, about her eyes. And then I realized they were my mother's eyes. It was my mother as a little girl standing in the snow, shivering and helpless, a pure human being before someone did to her what she had done to me. I had this inescapable sensation that someone had hurt her and continued to hurt her for a long time. More importantly, she had once been innocent.

I realized then that the difference between my mother and me was that I had had Myrtise, who for a few precious years held me and loved me, and my mother had had no one.

When I woke up, the world seemed in focus for the first time in my life. After years of haziness, I had crystal clarity.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked

“You know what's worse than being in rehab? Being in rehab over the holidays. You know what's worse than that? Being in a rehab that doesn't allow smoking. I mean, what the fuck? Addicts smoke. If we can't drink, we can't shoot up, and we can't ride the lightning bolt, at least we can smoke.”
― Darrell Hammond

“It can't have been fun to live with somebody whose brain was under siege.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked

“The way to move on from trauma is forgiveness, giving up the right to hit back harder than you were hit in the first place.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked

“On the Monster in the Light:

Mental illness is not an airborne virus. Monsters hide in the light. They hide in the light. Once you've identified the perp, now you've got to forgive them, right? So you go to phase two of this, which is two parts. That you sort of began to realize that monsters don't make themselves, and in order to be a monster you have to be a victim first. It's a good place to start. You know that there's nothing that releases you from your perp. Nothing better than a little sympathy for the devil. I had to feel sympathy, really understand how she [Mom] became that way.”
― Darrell Hammond

“I didn’t know I was suffering from depression, or where it came from, I just knew I had this great need to escape myself.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked: Tales Of Stand-Up, Saturday Night Live, And Other Mind-Altering Mayhem

“If you're an alcoholic, your not like other people. You have a progressive fatal illness. Trauma is also a progressive and fatal illness.”
― Darrell Hammond, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked