Quotes About Comedy

I never really thought of myself as a physical comedian. But when I was a kid, I used to, you know, pretend to trip over things to make girls laugh in school and stuff like that. So I kind of learned how to fall without hurting yourself.

'Boat Trip' is more tiresome and dumb than actually bad.

There is a single entendre, but I don't know about a triple one.

I got cast on 'MADtv' as one of eight permanent cast members chosen from 8,000 comics who'd been screened. For any comic trying to make something of themselves, that was like hitting triple 7s-jackpot.

Our comedy was light-hearted amusement that seemingly tripped naturally off the tongue. That's why I don't think it will date.

I had always loved comedy, and acted out Steve Martin and Bill Cosby albums with my sister for my parents on road trips and stuff, and I loved to laugh and make people laugh.

I know comedians who go on weird day trips in order to have random experiences they can talk about. They'll go on their own to Thorpe Park waiting for something hilarious to happen. That's really sad.

I kind of thought that stand-up comedy would suffer from the Internet because people seem to know more about the craft of stand-up than ever before. I thought it would seem trite. Kind of like if you know more about magicians, you wouldn't love them.

I don't think I could ever do a network sitcom because the humor is often based on some trite circumstance. I don't want to be a part of a show where it's mostly about coming up with the jokes.

I think, in storytelling, people want to see triumph, and so it's usually nice to start with failure and see someone somehow rise above it. People like to see people try. And they like to see people fail for comedy, and they like to see people succeed for the drama and emotion.

Stand up comedy is an odd way to make a living, one that is regularly tinged with both triumph and despair.

I was the kid who at 12 years old went to NBC studio tours, and I would just answer all these trivia questions on the tour that the pages would ask about 'SNL'. I was that kid.

Light, trivial comedy does not appeal - it is not something I go to see.

I found that if I got up on the stage to entertain the troops I could make them shut up and look.

The trouble with a series as it gets older is it can feel like a tradition, and tradition is the enemy of suspense, and it's the enemy of comedy. It's the enemy of everything, really. So you have to shake it up.

The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly.

Things I used to get in trouble for writing at 'SNL,' suddenly other people like it.

You know when Jerry Ford gets the best joke, you know you're in trouble.

The trouble with the jokes is that once they're written, I know how they're supposed to work, and all I can do is not hit them. I'm more comfortable improvising. If I have just two or three ideas and I know how the character feels, what the character wants, everything in between is like trapeze work.

If I were given a choice between two films and one was dark and explored depraved, troubled or sick aspects of our culture, I would always opt for that over the next romantic comedy.

The funniest people I know were, not necessarily troubled, but had a harder time in school or were shy or picked on or something like that. I think that you rely on it. 'Well, I don't think I'm cute and no one wants to hang out with me - I'd better start trying to make people laugh.' I think there's an element of that in there.

I was the troublemaker, always being funny - that's just who I am.

Whether planned or not, humor takes our mind off of our troubles.

People laugh to forget their troubles, and to forget their troubles they like to look at people who aren't doing better than they are.