Explore Quotes by Jeff Dunham

My goal in any show is to make people laugh. That's the No. 1 thing. Everything else pales in comparison to that.

I think all the garbage in the world is thanks to a very small handful of idiots.

All through college, I was searching for characters that would make me unique and set me apart from the typical ventriloquist with the typical dummy that was the little boy, cheeky hard figure like Charlie McCarthy.

There's some sort of unspoken license... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.

It's a survival thing. I don't do anything to be artistic or just because I like it.

My parents never discouraged me. There were a couple times when my dad criticized a couple things that I did, but it was nothing. So through the bad shows, I never wanted to quit.

I think maybe one reason why ventriloquists are looked down on is because it's very difficult to be funny. I think what happens is that people get a dummy, they learn the technique of ventriloquism, they memorize the script, they think they're in show business.

Family time was very difficult when my girls were little, but I never missed a birthday; I was there for every major event.

The only way a ventriloquist speaks differently is that he forgoes using his or her lips, and learns to reproduce sounds using the tongue, upper palate, and teeth only. Those 'difficult' letters are B, F, M, P, V, W, and Y.

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh. That's my audience. They'll laugh at the dead terrorist.

The best place to find material is in real life. I've always maintained that it's not until the mid-20s that you have enough of a life to draw from. There's nothing better for a comic than to go through some bad stuff - and some good stuff, like getting married.

It's strange because even in the vaudeville days, ventriloquists were never the main attraction. They were the guys brought out to stand in front of the curtain while sets were being changed. Ventriloquism wasn't even celebrated as an art until Edgar Bergen came along in the 1930s.

I honestly go back and forth in my head about using advanced and innovative technologies for creating my characters. There's something more 'real' and charming when the characters aren't perfect. It's the difference between anything that's built by a computer and machine versus the same thing being made by hand.

Up until college age I was using the typical little-boy dummy that sits on the knee and makes woodpecker jokes. My first original character didn't happen until later, and that was Jose the Jalapeno on a Stick.

I'm a pretty good ventriloquist, but it's the entertainment value and the laughs that keep people sitting there and wanting more.

Math? Forget about it. If I add four plus eight plus six, I have to count on my fingers. I guess I'm hooked up differently.

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh.

I've skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech.

When I was eight years old, I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror, practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going; there was no reason to quit.

I've always said that instead of watching a guy juggle seven things amazingly I would rather see a really bad juggler who's really funny.

I used to pick Priuses out of the grill of my Hummer.