Quotes About Humor

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

Dan Curry is the funniest guy in the world. I can sit in a room with him for hours, and he's just cracking me up constantly. And Kitao is the next Terry Gilliam. A lot of comedy directors are just comedic writers, but they don't have any sense of aesthetic or visual vocabulary.

Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.

Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.

Between us and the writers, it was comedy hour the whole time. We could hardly get through it.

All of my comedian friends are some of the best joke writers in the world.

We all know funny people who can't get it down on the page - even funny writers who can't get it down on the page.

The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.

I always thought it would be funny to have the Parents Television Council write an episode of 'Family Guy' and give them full creative control. Then see how good the episode is. That's something we've actually discussed in the writers' room. We haven't proposed it yet, but if somebody from the PTC reads this, it might be worth discussing.

It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is probably that neither comparison is accurate.

There are times over different projects when I've asked the writers why people are swearing for no good reason. I tell them that it would be funnier if there weren't these swear words.

Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all.

But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They're all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

I wanted to be that quirky girl who writes funny songs that still have meaning.

Comedy comes out of everyone's worst day. No one writes a sitcom episode about everyone having a good day. It's always about someone being locked out of their house or someone being dumped or whatever.

You don't really have to say much when your headline is 'Drag Queen Robs Burger King.' Sometimes comedy writes itself.

Bin Laden is living in the United States, and he has blonde hair. He's probably got some type of eating disorder. And he drinks too much, and then occasionally writes an op-ed under the name Ann Coulter.

Neil Hamburger writes such cutting jokes.

It was a long time ago: 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt. It was a great story that was lasting, and I loved it so much. I also love Nora Ephron. I gobble up everything she writes. Also, I love Anthony Bourdain, very irreverent and funny.

Tina Fey writes crazy, off-color, racist, hilarious stuff for '30 Rock,' but it's always funny because you're in this almost two-dimensional world where there's Jenna Maroney and these over-the-top characters. That's the framework.

Look, anything any writer writes is going to be on some level autobiographical. Part of the funny/sad thing is that you don't always know how autobiographical you're being.

Once I started writing at 'The Onion' I was like, oh this is it, this is my dream job, I've achieved my dream job.

Stand-up has the best writers, because it's the hardest writing by a million miles.