Quotes About Comedy

Jon Stewart hires people that he thinks are funny. That's it. That's the only requirement.

When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first.

Every actor thinks he can do comedy, and it's not true.

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.

'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.

It was my third Second City review before I even got mentioned in the review. It was the third review where it finally was like, 'And Lauren Ash is here.' Thank God, it's about time!

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

Out of 30 years of Second City I was probably the third African-American with the main stage cast. I was surprised when I first heard that. I think part of the reason that improvisation has never been popular with African-Americans is that it isn't popular in the inner cities.

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

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

I know I wanted to be a comic when I was nine. I was thirteen the first time I did it. I was attending a Methodist Church youth retreat at the University of Southern Alabama. They held a talent show on the last night. I won, and then I made out with a 14-year-old girl from Prattville, Alabama.

I dropped out of school when I was 14 and I was hanging out with comedians in their thirties. I moved out of home and had some real lows.

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 feel like if I consider myself comfortable in something, then that's not exactly where I want to be. And in 'Jane the Virgin' specifically, I feel like I don't have to choose... We get to do drama and comedy sometimes within the same thirty seconds.

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 moved out to L.A. to be a filmmaker or director. I didn't even think about doing comedy or even acting. I wanted to be like Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson, but I wasn't going to a lot of comedy.

Anders Thomas Jensen and I had talked about making a movie which addressed the cancer issue, and we didn't want to make it heavy-handed. We wanted to do something which had a lot of hope in it. And then for some reason we came up with a romantic comedy.

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, 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' was a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.