Quotes on Comedy

Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.

Comedy is the blues for people who can’t sing.

The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man.

It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.

A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

All these jokes have been pre-approved as funny by me.

Y'know, you can't please all the people all the time... and last night, all those people were at my show.