Quotes About Comedy

I want a man as nice as my retarded dog, but one that doesn't crap on the floor.

Life, I'd heard someone say, is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. It seemed to me that it was both at once, even for those of us who don't do much of either.

So I'm ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.

If I felt any better I'd be unconscious.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

As a standup, I try to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room.

It is difficult to be funny and great at the same time. Aristophanes and Moliere and Mark Twain must sit below Aristotle and Bossuet and Emerson.

I'm a pretty funny guy, and I would love to do a comedy with a bunch of funny guys - movie-star guys, where they could help me through it.

Sometimes Americans don't quite get my sense of humor. My good ol' British sarcasm seems to go over their heads.

I think humor is important for all of us, and a great comedian is a great treasure.

Hup hup ha ha hammy hee hee!

I think romantic comedy, when done right, is my favorite genre. It's just a genre that's very human.

There's always an article coming out, saying, 'The new thing is funny women!'

I never sort of thought of myself as a comedy writer, by nature.

The only honest art form is laughter.

The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.

There's a thin line between to laugh with and to laugh at.

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they'll take you away, man. You can't.

Today's comedian has a cross to bear that he built himself. A comedian of the older generation did an act and he told the audience, This is my act. Today's comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he's telling the truth. What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.

THE 7 FORMULAS OF HUMOR: 1. POW's -- plays on words 2. Reverses (quick switch in audience point of view) 3. Triples (build to exaggerated finale) 4. Incongruity (pairing two logical but unconventional ideas) 5. Stupidity (so audience feels superior) 6. Paired phrases (using antonyms, homonyms, synonyms) 7. Physical abuse (slapstick)

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

Authors of light pieces have, nobody knows why, a genius for getting into minor difficulties: they walk into the wrong apartments, they drink furniture polish for stomach bitters, they drive their cars into the prize tulip beds of haughty neighbors, they playfully slap gangsters, mistaking them for old school friends.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.