Quotes on Comedy

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.

When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace, and death a duty.

I think if you ask any of us here, we all dreamed of ending up on Saturday Night Live. I remember thinking, 'I'll just keep doing this as long as I can get away with it.'

After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.

Somewhere around the fifth or seventh grade I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me. But after a while it became part of my identity.

My oldest brother used to take me to the theater. The first play he took me to see was 'Black Comedy,' then he took me to see 'Butley.' We'd see all these British plays. And 'Hello, Dolly,' with Pearl Bailey. I was unconsciously thinking, 'Gee, I would love to be able to do that.'

According to the rules of comedy, your suffering will be funny after an undetermined length of time. Maybe not while you're having your gangrenous leg sawed off, watching your home burn down or learning how to be intimate with your cellmate, but, in the big scheme of things, soon.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it's so much fun.

We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character - her characters are vigorous and elementary; not for comedy - hers is grim and crude; not for a philosophic view of life - hers is that of a country parson's daughter; but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that, as we say in real life, they have only to open the door to make themselves felt.

Timing is the essence of life, and definitely of comedy.

Comedy is the kindly contemplation of the incongruous.

Got a proper job at 28. Gave it up to try comedy at 38. Decided to get fit and healthy at 48. It's never too late. But do it now

I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play.

Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

Though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.

My roommate says, "I'm going to take a shower and shave. Does anyone need to use the bathroom?" It's like some weird quiz where he reveals the answer first.

People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, 'I don't have that button.'

I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, 'Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?' And I said, 'Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?'

Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.