Quotes About Humor

Anyone who thinks they can write the perfect comedy that everyone will love is a fool. I can only write what I think is funny and hope that there is a likeminded audience out there.

As a director, you can't stop a guy if he thinks something's hysterical, because if you do, then he'll get depressed because he thinks he didn't come up with a good joke. So if a guy's going on some run and it's killing him, and he thinks it's hilarious, you gotta do enough so that he thinks you can use it in the movie.

Satire works best when it hews close to the line between the outlandish and the possible - and as that line continues to grow thinner, the satirist's task becomes ever more difficult.

'Writing' always means 'not writing' to me because I will do anything to put it off. I think this is mainly because writing anything down and then handing it over to a third party - especially in comedy - is such an exposing act that you naturally want to delay the process.

Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third.

They wanted me to play third like Brooks so I did play like Brooks - Mel Brooks.

Maybe the bar is low, but most of the strips that are 50, 60, 70 years old that are on their second or third generation of artists, the humor is pretty bland. There are others by people that were raised on 'Family Guy' or 'South Park' that are edgier. Mine's not as edgy as those, but it's edgier than 'Beetle Bailey.'

I don't talk about myself in the third person, and I laugh at people who do.

I think on 'Third Watch' that I was the comic relief on a lot of that. I mean, I definitely had dark moments, but people tended to think he was funny even if the character himself wasn't having a fun time.

I started watching 'SNL' when I was thirteen or so; those were the Molly Shannon/Ana Gasteyer/Cheri Oteri years.

I remember, my mom, she's lived in Spain for about thirty years, and we were playing the Royal Albert Hall, and she was with some friends from New York. Morrissey came out with the sign 'The Queen is Dead,' and my mom's friends are like, 'Oh my God.' They took it literally.

A comedy can actually get funnier and funnier. Even though you know the joke, you enjoy it so much, it's the facial expression, you laugh. The laugh doesn't wear off. It could be with you for thirty years.

We always thought we wanted to do a show that you could both laugh and cry in thirty minutes, and I don't know that there are that many comedies that try for that.

I love seeing Mark Steel or Mark Thomas, but I'm not that sort of person.

I've noticed, as a comedy fan, that I really like Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino because when they're funny, they're actually funny. It's not like when other dramatic writers have comedy, and I'm just like, 'Well, that's not funny. Why are you even trying to make a joke here?'

I think in my case, I had no choice but to have a good sense of humor. I grew up with my dad, Danny Thomas, and George Burns and Bob Hope and Milton Berle and Sid Caesar and all those guys were at our house all the time and telling jokes and making each other laugh.

I like Thomas Jefferson, though he intimidated me. I thought he would have been very tough to be around. I don't know if he had such a sense of humor.

When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.

Comedy as a genre is the one that has given me maximum success, and I do broadly get associated with this genre. I thoroughly enjoy comedy, especially because it is inherent to my personality.

It is said that a person who makes other people laugh has a lot of pain in his heart. On the contrary, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a comedian and don't nurse such thoughts.

You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.

I was on an army show, and in the army - especially in Korean culture - there's a very, very strict hierarchy. Obviously, you would not talk informally or disrespectfully to your commanding officer. But me, in my limited Korean, I basically told my commanding officer, 'Thou shalt forget!' The Korean public thought it was really funny.

Even though I am fantastic looking, I am still quite intelligent.

I like to tease people. I hate when people do it to me, though.