Quotes on Show

That first year I was doing 'Grey's,' I didn't know it was possible to fire the creator of a show off their own show, so I didn't behave like somebody who was afraid of being fired.

Years ago I wanted to buy an apartment in New York City. I was a single female - I had gone through my divorce - I had three children, I was in show business and black. It was, like, impossible.

Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.

People do not come to a Penn & Teller show to see a magic show. They just don't. They come to see weird stuff that they can see no place else, that will make them laugh and make the little hairs stand up on the backs of their necks.

I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be.

We start caring way too much about that new TV show or how many likes we're getting on Facebook or what our mother will think of our new house plant. These are bad values that turn us into frivolous people.

I walk on a stage, and I know if it's been a good show or not. You know when it's been a good interview. No one has to tell you. You know it. You feel it. You can feel the air. You can feel everything about it when it's a good show. And you know when you've messed up.

People don't realize that we, we meaning people in show business, have the same problems as everyone else. Money doesn't change that. Fame doesn't change that. Sometimes that brings on more problems. You know, it's just a different kind of problems.

Audiences of critical thinkers are my favorite kinds of audiences. There are jokes I tell in the show that don't get laughs unless I am in front of an audience of critical thinkers. Put me in front of a crowd of science teachers or astronauts! The guileless aren't our audience - it's the critical thinkers we love.

There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.

I want my audience to be my friends - that is when they will get the best comedy. If they see me as a performer, they won't get the best show.

My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief.

I'm not a one-man show. I was never that in my life, and I never want to be that.

This life is not man's own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine 'plot.'

I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'

If you look at 'The Have and the Have Nots,' I didn't want to write a show where everyone is great and wonderful and perfect. I wanted to write it so that you're not really sure who the haves are. You look at Hanna, and you see that she doesn't have much, but she has great faith.

Even the best teams can fail. Celebrities can fade. There is only One in whom your faith is always safe, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you need to let your faith show!

If you put one model in a show or in an ad campaign, that doesn't solve the problem. We need teachers in universities. We need internships. We need people of different ethnic backgrounds in all parts of the industry. That really is the solution: you have to change it from the inside.

If you're going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to know who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't like you. No matter who you are.

I don't want people at my shows to come out and say, 'I just saw a cool show.' I want them to say, 'I had fun at the show.' I want it to be a collaborative thing and be part of the audience and have them be part of me. I try to interact with everyone there and have them be equal to me because they are.

How many times have we seen reality celebrities fall from grace - often through no fault of their own - and then go on a show like 'Celebrity Big Brother' and say, 'I want to show the public a different side of me.' And I'm screaming at the telly going, 'This is not therapy. This is voyeurism!'