Quotes About Humor

All my black friends can't swim. Is that bad?

Is it my fault that there is a stereotype that black people are not good swimmers? I know that's a joke, but somebody will say, 'I can't believe you would say that.' Well, first of all it's just a joke, and second of all if you watch the Olympics, black people win medals in jumping, running. They don't win any in swimming.

I went swimming the other day and my wife was watching and she said, 'You know, it's funny, it's when you've got no clothes on, no one recognizes you.' I said, 'What are you saying? That I should do more love scenes?'

What keeps me going is that this I all there is. I am a comedian, and this is what I do. It's like telling a fish to stop swimming. It'll die.

The only actor who I think probably might have possibly taken a swing at me if he could have would be Burt Reynolds. He used to call Roger and me the Bruise Brothers, out of Chicago.

When the Mac ad campaign was in full swing, I quickened my pace as I went past certain bus stops. My wife told me that she loyally took a piece of chewing gum off my nose once.

I played baseball. I kind of sucked at that. They used to call me 'The Buntmaster' because my coach never wanted me to swing.

When I had a proper job, I used to go every lunchtime to the Wallace Collection in London to look at the Fragonard pictures of large women on swings. They made me laugh.

What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think.

When we go out to train, we work hard, but when we're back in the hotel, you want to chill out. People want to switch off from football because you spend so much time doing it. For me, switching off means playing jokes.

The joke is mightier than the sword.

Comedy is a downward slicing sword sometimes, looking down and laughing at people.

'One Leg Too Few' by Peter Cook is a perfect sketch. The setting is ridiculous, the language is beautiful, and the performances make the most of every syllable and movement.

A sex symbol? A symbol of sex? I don't think that I am a sex symbol, although it's very flattering. I'm 59, now, so I think I'm possibly past my sell-by date. I think I am.

I'm not a sex symbol. How could I be with these skinny bowlegs?

I love being regarded as a sex symbol, but I can't take it too seriously.

When people say, 'You're perceived as a sex symbol,' I love the idea of that because it's so absurd.

It's rather amusing at my advanced age to become a sex symbol.

But I enjoy the opportunity to use swear symbols.

Humor borne out of cruelty happens to be the easiest and therefore lowest form of comedy: It is cheap stuff and it does not elevate the candidate, nor make him a more fundamentally sympathetic character.

Ironically, heavier comedians, actors, and the characters they play are actually more sympathetic, and easier for audiences to identify with, than the svelte.

My wheelhouse is intense characters who have a certain sympathetic streak and also a sense of humor.

Here's my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then there's this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering.

I have what we call a 'symphony act.' I'm the only comedian, I think, in the country that does it.