Quotes About Comedy

I am not a big fan of very prepared standup. I like when Dave Attell writes and I appreciate it but I much more enjoy with he does crowd work. I'm not that kind of comic that prepares a specific set. If I see a comic do the same prepared set night after night I am so bored.

I don't think of myself as a guy who writes for kids, I really don't. I try really hard to write a good, solid sitcom.

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

I love writing comedy and being a part of it, but as a visual, physical presence in a story, I probably am more impactful in drama. It's not really a tribute to my dexterity and wide-ranging talent so much as it is a person finally getting to where they should've been from the start.

I loved 'Everybody Loves Raymond' because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.

I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that.

I'm a joke comic. I tell jokes. I like writing a joke, and I like when a joke works, and I like other comics who tell jokes.

You don't just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at 'SNL' is writing to go after someone.

Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.

Nick at Nite, the cultural equivalent of aerosol cheese.

They watched a repeat of Frasier on Channel 11. The show was starting to grow on them both.

He spoke with a funny maybe-Hungarian, maybe-Arabic accent, like something he made up for a comedy sketch. Anton was unshaven, the stubble on his face glistening in a not-pleasant way. He wore sunglasses even though it was cave-dark in here. "This

Her "bailiff" was named Waco. He was a retired stand-up comic. Yes, for real. This was a TV set, not a courtroom, though it looked like one. While not exactly a trial, Hester did preside over a legal proceeding of a certain kind. The two parties sign a contract for arbitration. The producers pay the settlement, and both the plaintiff and the defendant are paid a hundred dollars a day. It's win-win

To be totally honest? I don't know if I'll keep doing more impressions. People told me I had a facility for it, and I was like, 'Okay, I'm the impression guy.' So you imagine the cast at 'SNL' is an A-Team, and you've got the explosives guy, and I'm the impression guy.

Apparently, I have a totally different sense of humour.

When you get started in comedy, you're at the bottom of the totem pole. Not only are you not getting paid at these open mics. You're actually paying to do them.

I'm not really in touch with those 'Seinfeld' lads except Jason Alexander.

Comedy needs to happen naturally and be in touch with the character. When you see that guy in your office that everybody laughs at, he doesn't think he's funny. He's just being him, and that's the joke.

If you start to disrespect the character you're playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique. It's like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in any way.

You can't do anything to be funny. That's cringeworthy. If your humor comes out of a place of love every time, you don't make the joke bigger than you. The funniest comedians are in touch with their emotional level.

The comedy I like the best is comedy I can't do, stuff that doesn't touch my arena.

A big part of becoming a funny person was a major defense mechanism. Onstage, especially as a woman, I've had to be really tough. The second you show a crack, the audience can literally leave.

'SNL' is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse.

You don't know what a rough crowd is. If all I have to do is go make people laugh, that's nothing. Let me tell you what a tough crowd is. A tough crowd is going to a morning service and you got six people there and you gotta pat your house payment. That's a tough crowd.