“I have legions of friends who I can return to and can count on for as long as I need, and that is why I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Photo-Illustration: Joe McKendry; Photo: Savion Washington/FilmMagic

The Maria Bamford Questionnaire is a series of 25 questions designed by the beloved and openhearted comedian to unearth surprising truths about its respondents. In this edition, you’ll learn about the inimitable Richard Kind, who you have likely enjoyed in at least one episode of Only Murders in the Building, Poker Face, Mid-Century Modern, and Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney over the past eights months alone.

A spoonful of peanut butter … [pauses] … or a handful of cereal.

I have made up my own. It is a belief in a higher power that truly says “Treat thy neighbor as thyself, and all decisions will come from that.” There is a God, but he has no history. He just exists.

Merrell shoes. Merrells are the best shoes ever. I’ve wanted to tell them an ad slogan that said, “I sleep with my Merrells on, because it’s more comfortable than sleeping barefoot.” They’re the best shoes in the world.

Heights. I get scared of heights. Even a stepladder will make me scared. Ladders. Going out onto a balcony, just the backs of my thighs begin to tingle. But I am absolutely secure when I’m in an airplane.

I had breakfast with a very, very dear friend’s daughter and her new husband. My dear friend passed away of a brain tumor about two or three years ago, but his daughter I love very much. She’s a very admirable woman. She works for human rights. She works for immigration law. She lives in Washington, D.C., and her husband, whom I just met for the first time, is a spectacular young man. That’s why I’m late for this.

I read the menu from the restaurant that I was at that was called the Granola Bar on 87th and Amsterdam. The menu is fantastic for breakfast, but I’ve never been there for lunch or dinner.

Give me a second, because I only buy used stuff. [Pauses] An expensive couch that I got was so inexpensive. It’s like a $16,000 couch. It’s magnificent, but I got that and another piece of furniture for $1,000. I’m going to get you the type of couch it is. [Pauses to look through his phone.] I can’t remember, but it’s a great couch; I just don’t want it. I want to get a sectional that’s L-shaped. So if anybody would like to buy it …

This is the honest to God’s truth, and it sounds like a cliché: I cannot listen to Donald Trump talk. But this comes with an explanation. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse, the way that he talks over the years. In doing some diligence for the John Mulaney show, I found out what Gene Simmons talks like, and I went to The Apprentice to watch Gene Simmons on it. I never watched The Apprentice when it was on. I saw Donald Trump on that show, and I thought he was fantastic. He had energy, he thought fast, he had a command of the language. I thought he was very entertaining. And what he has morphed into now is a slow, unmelodic drawl that is so lazy in his choice of words, and the way that he talks has gotten so disgraceful. It is on the back of his heels, whereas on The Apprentice, he was on the balls of his toes, and he was actually very exciting. I had never seen that before, and right now, I cannot listen to him.

New paragraph.

What he talks about is as disgraceful and uneducated and uninspiring. I’m not just talking about his politics. That he stands for what he does and calls himself a president is disgraceful. And everything that I just said has nothing to do with his politics. And his politics I am horrified by.

My mother’s uterus. Only because she’s dead.

I have legions of friends who I can return to and can count on for as long as I need, and that is why I’m the luckiest man in the world.

It’s not a TV show or a movie. It’s a play called Angels in America, and it is my dream to play Roy Cohn in Angels in America. And Tony Kushner, the author, is well aware of my desire.

I would like to quit my need to just eat whatever’s in front of me and to say, “I’m full. I’ve had enough. I don’t need to eat anymore.” Whether out of anxiety or ADD, I have to pick at food, and hunger has nothing to do with it. When I am finished, I continue eating. It’s a bad thing. I’d teach myself that self-control is important, that you are better than this, and to always think, Do you really want it?

I really would love to know Andy Kaufman.

I’m not going to be specific about it, but overbooking my time to meet people for coffee or a meal when I have too much going on. New sentence: But I’m too good/guilty about turning them down. I just make too many appointments and lay myself out too thin, and I don’t have the capacity to turn them down.

The youth of my children. However, this is what I say: “I’d like to be young again, but not today.” I’d love to be 27 again. Maybe 32.

One. Well, no — I dye my sideburns, but my hair has always been this color. But I do dye my sideburns because they come in gray-gray-gray, and when I dye them, it looks better, and I think I look younger. But I do it because it’s so freaky that it’s so gray. But all my hair is still black.

Italy. Florence.

Wow. Well, it’s tough, because I pretty much like everybody. [Pauses] I learned from one person how to say no, but I didn’t digest that lesson. I learned how to do it, but I don’t do it.

I went to this restaurant with these friends and my son. I know I’m having lunch in a little bit, so I did not have breakfast. If I had breakfast, what I would have wanted from it — and two of them had it — is avocado toast. I love avocado toast. It’s an outrage that it’s as expensive as it is, but it sure is good.

Anytime anybody falls à la America’s Funniest Home Videos makes me laugh.

Somebody texting while driving or driving drunk, and not just ruining their lives, but the lives of the people they hit or impact is so not funny to me that it sends shivers up my spine.

A lot of happy people in a group.

A group of people having diarrhea and they can’t go to the bathroom.

Seven million dollars and a nice house — because I have children, so I’m not just taking care of myself; I have to take care of my children.

Being very, very old and having my body fail.

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