Quotes About Comedy

I didn't want to be selling insurance at 40, wondering what would it have been like to do stand-up.

I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened.

There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit.

Oh all the time when Victoria Wood and I did our series. There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'

From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. From the time I was 21, I've taken them on everything from clay courts to cement to wood floors, coming off pianos, going out a two-story window, landing on Dean, falling into the rough. You do that and you're gonna have problems.

I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.

I've always been criticised for how filthy my material is. Victoria Wood said to me once, 'I wish I was a bit ruder, like you,' and I said, 'Well, I wish I was a bit cleaner, like you.'

Victoria Wood's 'Dinnerladies' is just exceptionally written; every single line is a setup or a punchline.

In high school, I went to a place called the Mountain School. It's on a farm in Vermont, and I read Emerson and Thoreau and ran around the woods. Now I go hiking with a bunch of my comedy buddies. We talk about our emotions. I also do a lot of writing on hikes, just to get the blood flowing and the ideas moving.

Chaplin was my idol. I remember watching those movies at this little theater in Woodstock, N.Y., when I was probably 6 and laughing so hard at the surprises, like Keaton suddenly being dragged by a streetcar.

There are some parallels between 'Zombieland' and 'Range 15,' except 'Zombieland,' with Woody Harrelson, there's this pleasurable fun in every scene.

Horror is like comedy. Woody Allen's comedy is going to be very different from Ben Stiller's comedy which is going to be different from Adam Sandler's comedy which is going to be different from Judd Apatow's comedy. They're all comedy, but they're all very different types and you can enjoy all of them. Horror is the same way.

I was raised by a dad who has a fantastic sense of humor who raised me on 'The Muppet Show,' Steve Martin movies, and Woody Allen's standup, and he really encouraged me to ham it up from an early age.

'Dil Kabaddi' is an urban comedy about couples breaking up and reconciling. It's based on one of Woody Allen's movies. Can't remember which one.

Woody says I can make jokes, but I don't get them - I'm always looking deeper for the meanings.

Woody Allen's 'The Complete Prose' - It's just the best selection of comic writing by one author. You know it's good comedy when you get quite demoralised about yourself.

I'm a huge Bob Hope fan, up until about the late '50s. I've seen so many of his movies up until then, and they're a big influence on me and a big influence on Woody Allen, who is basically just ripping off Bob Hope for his first five or six movies.

The only thing I really recommend, if you're starting out in stand-up is to not try to copy anybody else. You can be influenced by people. I was influenced by Steve Martin and Bob Newhart and Woody Allen, but I never tried to be someone else. I always tried to be myself. And the reason people are successful is they're unique.

A lot of my comic influences are distinctly American: Woody Allen and Bob Hope, for example. They were always the underdogs who were using wit to sort of battle their way through. And it seems to me that a lot of contemporary U.S. comedies are shot through with losers. None of the characters in 'The Big Bang Theory,' for instance, are studs.

The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.

Woody Allen asked me to improv once. I said no.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it's taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

Woody Allen is a great dramatist and a great comedian.

My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.