There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to one kind of apology alone,
Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.
You go to their house for a meal,
And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;
They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,
And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;
If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,
And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;
They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,
But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.
I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,
I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,
Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,
And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,
And what particularly bores me with them,
Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,
So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,
Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.

Every fucking week there's some celebrity or comic or an athlete that has to apologize for a caught on tape comment, or insensitive joke, a drunk tweet. And they have a press conference, and it's always something that's way weaker than the shit I say every night-- as a segue I say worse shit, nobody ever asks me to apologize. I wouldn't, but I wanna be asked one time. I've got way better shit than they do, I demand outrage for God's sakes, what do I have to do? I could've told that joke at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and people would go, "Huh? What'd he say? I wasn't listening."

I built my career on writing jokes apologizing for myself. It’s what most people do. You have to explain who you are, and you point to a difference that you have. That’s your angle. But when it becomes the only reason you speak, it becomes an issue; all your material revolves around why you’re different. The great freedom post-“Nanette” was that I’d put all that on the table.