Quotes About Comedy

If the 'Chappelle's Show' had stayed on, I seriously doubt I would have developed this fast as a stand-up comedian. I probably would never have taken stand-up comedy really seriously.

I didn't realize I wanted to write about D.C. until after 2000. Even though I was a comedy writer, I stayed away from that subject on purpose. It took attaining some distance and perspective.

The thing that everybody loves about the 'Burnett Show' was that you felt like you were really there - all that fun stuff stayed in the show, and I think that's why everybody remembers it so fondly because that just doesn't happen anymore on television.

Norman Lear was talking about everything in the '70s... race, sexism, all of it. The network comedy really stayed away from that in the 1980s and 1990s.

The young comedians always ask me, 'What's the secret for staying around?' I tell them, 'There is no secret - just stay around. Longevity is the most important thing.'

I'm staying in my wheelhouse, not making any romantic comedies in a hurry.

What made me a comedian was staying on the stage and starting to talk.

I don't watch a whole lot of stand up. Mainly I prefer to read writers; they make me laugh the most. Something gets you when you're alone and someone's voice is coming through their work. There's a different quality to it that stays with you a bit more.

Stand-up is one of the art forms where you don't have to look nice, and I hope it stays that way.

Malcolm and Eddie Show,' a lot of other people came and went, but Malcolm and Eddie were steady on the case.

I'm very protective of my material. And you have to be, because it's very easy for people just to steal jokes.

Someone gave me a piece of advice once, my first manager Lucien Hold. He said, 'If you do stand-up about your own life, no one can steal it.' I always thought that was the best piece of advice.

Like with Berle, he was always trying to steal the scene, get a little extra.

It's sort of an action flick. You can't be that funny trying to steal diamonds.

I've turned arrogance into an artform, where it's so absurd that it becomes comedy. But I've never done anything to hurt anybody or steal from anyone.

I don't know if you can ever steal a scene from Louis C.K. or Melissa McCarthy. I think that's kind of impossible.

Never steal jokes.

The one and only thing that every comic agrees on is that you do not steal jokes.

There's a difference between hiring writers and stealing jokes.

It's so funny, I'm always stealing from Moliere, and nobody ever notices. I steal from him willy-nilly.

My friends were stealing cars and shoplifting. I was never into that but I was cheeky. I enjoyed making people laugh.

When somebody says that a comic steals jokes, it's the ultimate betrayal of comedy.

The jokes I was always attracted to, and that I would tell for the longest, were jokes where I cared about the subject. Whenever I wrote a joke where I didn't care, even if it was really funny, the third time I told it, it would lose steam.

With comedy, I try to steer toward, you know, talking about people that do crazy things, messed-up things. That's what I like to talk about.