Quotes on Comedy

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

The only weapon I've got is comedy

It's a lovely moment when everyone's part of something greater than the sum of its parts. That encapsulates what a comedy gig should be, with the comic as the lightning rod, the Norse mischief god, getting the audience to do something they wouldn't necessarily do.

Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way.

You start in bars and then restaurants, then you want to get into comedy clubs where you feature, then you headline, and once you sell out clubs you're into theaters. I've been able to get there, and it's cool to do that.

It's wonderful to play a villain who gets a laugh or to stop a comedy dead in its tracks with a touching moment. It's kind of like a symphony that has very different movements.

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

You never get tired unless you stop and take time for it.

There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy's heart stops, and you're the one who has to fix it!

I'll do whatever I can do to remain employed. I'm just not precious about doing comedy or doing drama. I never want to do something in order to prove to other people what I can do.

I felt like there was something wrong with me in my twenties but, when I started doing stand up comedy, I learnt that if you tell the truth it's really funny and people connect to it. So I think if I keep doing that then I'll be happy.

I don't see the point of doing comedy unless it comes from pain.

I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.

Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody.

Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.

I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes though I'm gonna be on for an hour.