Quotes from Gene Perret

Localizing your comedy always multiplies its humor content because the audience members feel like they're sharing the stage with you.

An audience is tremendously important in humor because it becomes an active participant in the performance. There is no humor until audience members get involved.

If you ignore them, they won't laugh.

Your sales pitch should present the goal and build to the interesting complication. They'll buy that.

If you perfect your skills, you won't have to depend on breaks - someone will discover you. Breaks are tremendously overrated. Its not the breaks. The way to succeed in anything is to be good at it and to keep getting better.

Often in life we will be evaluated and judged by people less qualified than ourselves. And that's frustrating. Authority doesn't always indicate ability or good judgment.

There are very few good judges of comedy. The rest of us are guessing.

Its almost as easy as unraveling a sweater. Grab any loose thread and pull.

Rejections are not obstacles to a career. They're simply things that don't work and can do us no harm. Fearing rejection can do harm. It stops you from continuing.

Everybody doesnt have to like your material - just somebody who can write checks that dont bounce.

My best advice to a comedy writer is to set a quota and stick to it. It needn't be a demanding quota, but it must be inflexible.

Most people dont buy talent; they buy results.

Humor is an attitude. It's a way of looking at life and of telling others how you feel about what's happening around you.

Leisure: A fancy word for people who don't want to admit they're bored.

Our marriage has always been a 50-50 proposition - with the possible exception of closet space.

Like good wine, marriage gets better with age - once you learn to keep a cork in it.

Retirement: That's when you return from work one day and say, "Hi, Honey, I'm home - forever."

I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work. So I do it three or four times a day.

An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly.

When you retire, you switch bosses - from the one who hired you to the one who married you.

Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day.

Retirement is wonderful. It's doing nothing without worrying about getting caught at it.

We used to play spin the bottle when I was a kid. A girl would spin the bottle and if it pointed to you when it stopped, the girl could either kiss you or give you a dime. By the time I was 14, I owned my own home.