Comedian Quotations | Page 6

Sure, the comedians who swear or use scatological humor can get laughs, but they're uncomfortable laughs.

Up North you are holding your own. Everyone considers themselves a comedian.

Audiences have proved time and again that they don't want a steady diet of any entertainer airing his social views - especially if he's a comedian.

I think the hard thing for young comedians is that the majority of the young people in the audience out there don't have the wide range of references.

Although I had good hand-eye coordination, I was so tall and skinny and muscularly weak that I just was not well coordinated. But what I started to do quite early on was watch some of the great old silent comedians, like Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin, and then later on Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

By watching the great, old comedians I picked up a few tricks about how to do physical comedy. And whenever I could learn something, I sort of added that to my repertoire.

You learn to laugh at yourself and you also lean on comedy as a crutch to kind of take the edge off because comedians often are self-deprecating and they cross lines that they shouldn't. Stuff like that brings a smile to my face every once in a while when needed.

I started doing stand-up at the age of 20. This was back in 1976, around the time (coincidence?) that the first comedy clubs were starting. The young comedians of today gasp when I tell them how many shows I did that first year: 500. Five nights a week.

Thinking up jokes is easy. The hard part is trying them out on stage, because you never know if they're funny until you get there. Not one comedian in the world ever really knows.

Some comedians change their style, often to their advantage; but I see no reason why I can't continue with the "urbane sophisticate" 'til the day I die.

Comedians want to be rock legends for a day - that sounds fun to them.

They're the darkest people I know, comedians.

People who become comedians… come from pain, come from conflict.

I'm not very funny in real life. I used to want to be a comedian when I was 13, 14, 15, till I saw "Death Of A Salesman" with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.

The comedian can put the punchline out there, but it's the audience that receives it - and has to get it.

I'm not a comedian. I don't make things funny if they're not funny. I don't invent funny stuff.

I've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.

I suppose in our culture - in our lifetime - we've always enjoyed people who tell it straight. We like our presidents, our comedians, and our actors to do that . . . It's funny. You say that people prefer a tasteful formalism - as opposed to an oppressive formalism - but I do feel very strongly that form follows function.

I don't think comedians take advantage of the fact that television and film are visual mediums.

The tragedian will always be a limited tragedian if he has not learned how to laugh. The comedian who cannot weep will never touch the highest levels of mirth.

The funniest comedians are in touch with their emotional level.

Comedians don't laugh. They're too busy analyzing why it's funny or not.

I don't really like actors. Actors are like terrible comedians with no punch lines. It's all about them. They talk about themselves all the time. They bore the sh - t out of you.

This is something that the nimblest standup comedians learn, over time, to handle gracefully. They'll go between prepared material, then they'll respond to what's happening in the room and weave it back into the prepared material and so on.

It really helps a comedian to be an outsider.

I realize how desperate it sounds for me, as a comedian, to ask you to laugh at my jokes.

I was definitely prepared for it to be slower, and it has not worked out that way in any shape or form. I'm grateful as a comedian, and slightly demoralized, occasionally, as a human being - those two things are always very different.

Having a human conversation is not something I've had any training in either as a comedian or as, you know, a human being.

I'm a very straightforward person. But that's fine for a comedian. Because a lot of times you're talking about everyone else.

Everybody tells jokes, but we still need comedians.

I always remember writing a page of jokes for a comedian and handing it to him backstage at a club and he read it and then took his cigarette lighter and lit the page on.

To be a comedian, you gotta jokesmith, there's no way around it.

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

All comedians are a bit attention-seeking and I'm no different. Anyone with the audacity to want to be listened to for an hour and a half must be.

The tragedy for comedians is there's nothing more they want than to be liked. We desperately seek approval. It's almost like a personality disorder you can do as a job.

Some comedians really are funnier than others. Some people really are more beautiful than others. But these are true only because of the kinds of creatures we happen to be; the perceptual apparatus - apparati - that we happen to have.

Hopefully the only things off-limits are crummy jokes, but being a standup comedian, I know that's not always the case... You know it when you have to take a shower afterward.

The best-laid plans of mice and comedians usually wind up on the cutting-room floor.

The real focus at first is to just become a good stand-up comedian, and then when you get to a certain level, then they allow you to do other things. You feel if you're overwhelmed by something or if you're not.

That's what it's like to be a comedian. You basically stand and stare at the world and hope it craps out cause that's a good year for you. So that's not a pleasant feeling.

As a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal - in all of those areas, I am looking forward to the end of the Bush administration with every fiber of my being.

I have not moved out of the comedian's box into the news box. The news box is moving towards me.

I'm not a comedian so I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but I think with a lot of comedy the impetus behind it is: I've been rejected so many times and I'm bitter and now I'm going to talk about it.

I was like a Borscht Belt comedian trapped in the body of a 6-year-old. I was channeling Jackie Mason at 7.

I feel like Jim Carrey is probably the closest thing to a true physical comedian that we have working today.

Sometimes I don't want to go out and socialize; I just want to watch my favorite shows and comedians. But then I have to remember that it is important to participate in life if you want to portray real life on screen.

There's that great Bill Hicks line - the comedian - where he says, "Are you proud to be an American?" "I don't know. It's just where my parents had sex."

If you know me, I don't live in this dismal world. I mean, I like to have fun. My friends are comedians.

Outsiders develop humor as a defense; why do you think most comedians are gay or Jewish?

I'm glad that that era of stand-up is over, because I think it adversely affected a lot of people who could have been really, really great comedians. Because they unconsciously or subconsciously stifled their wild impulses, and were thinking about the five clean minutes for The Tonight Show, or the 20-minute sitcom pitch as a stand-up act.

You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.

With a comedian, it's the opposite. You put that album out, and they've heard it. If they're coming out to see you, you'd better be doing new stuff. There's always a tiny part of the audience that want to hear certain bits of yours, or they've brought friends to see you, and they've told them about some of your bits. Then maybe you should do them.

You don't have to be inspired by comedians. You have to be inspired by things that are real, whether it's music, comedy...a movie - that should inspire you.

You have to go away to come back. That's just normal. That's with bands, actors, comedians, everything.

If I want to keep working as an actor, I'm going to become a comedian who does fart jokes.

Many comedians have a dark side that lets them take a negative thing and turn it funny.

My favorite comedians were Jimmy Durante, George Burns, senior citizens.

Genuinely love doing standup and I'm a comedian first, so for me what makes my standup special is the fact that I don't have to adapt or adjust. I am who I am. I appeal to everyone, hence in the movie doing a world tour.

Having other comedians complimenting my work is the biggest accolade that I can get.

Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke.

I've been doing comedies but I'm not a comedian.

I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce.

Every group needs a comedian. A comic who is politically incorrect at the Berkeley campus might slay them at a Klan rally.

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.

I am not so secretly a comedian. I write a lot of my own material if you've seen videos I've done. I write jokes.

Comedians are the nearest to suicide.

I wanted to make a living, but I really was not interested in money at all. I was interested in being a great comedian.

I guess I still feel that I'm a comedian; if I had to pick one thing that I feel like I could do, it would be that. That doesn't mean that I like it, but I feel that's what I am.

I don’t like writing for comedians. I like writing for actors. The best comedians are the best actors.

For me, comedians are like the epitome for everything great, and they terrify me. I just want to be them. I want to be like them.

Jewish comedians do the best Jewish jokes, and anyone else doing that, they don't have a right to, because they're not coming from that experience. I know that's a slightly heightened example, but it's the same thing. We're bumpkins, so we can make bumpkin jokes.

Architects are the new comedians.

I really wanted to, but I just didn't understand how people became comedians. I kind of thought it was something you were born into. And so I wanted to be a veterinarian or an architect. I wanted to be in a band, and for some reason I could understand how you could be in a band because I had guitars and all my friends played music. Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.

I considered myself a professional comedian because the club would pay me $20.

I'm such a fan of Lily's Tomlin, for so many years. I feel like Lily was the first popular mainstream crossover comedian who also was kind of an overtly feminist comedian.

Comedians have to write to survive because you don't get cast for your beauty.

Jews have a tendency to become comedians.

Comedians don`t get Oscars, so I gave up on that a long time ago. And I can`t really speak about the Oscar-worthiness of my own performance.

I just respected comedians whether they were or they weren't, from, you know, new or old.

I like what a third man brings. A kind of oblique vision, seeing something in the material that you didn't know was there. As a comedian, I'm always listening to the audience. And in movies, sometimes the only audience you have is the producer and the director. I like having someone else's opinion, especially if you're on the same wavelength.

My greatest hope was to get discovered as a comedian and get on a sitcom.

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

I spent 25 years as a stand-up comedian.

I was a stand-up comedian for 10 years, if you can believe it. And I gave it up at age 22.

One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness. Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

Jason [Sudeikis] is a successful actor and comedian, I don't think that he takes comedic roles any less seriously than he does dramatic roles.

I started as a stand-up comedian. I wanted to be Carol Burnett when I was growing up.

I love comedy. If I could be a comedian - well, I probably would not take that job because it seems really hard, but I wish I could be.

Phyllis Diller came through a mine field of male comedians when she arrived on the comedy scene and she defused them all. She won her place in the Hall of Comedy as the First Lady. I will miss her.

I never really thought of myself as a sex goddess; I felt I was more a comedian who could dance.

Unfortunately, the show's success comes at the expense of its biggest asset -- the comedians themselves.

Every single comedian in Canada is now living in the United States.

Comedy is crowded. There are hundreds of comedians in every place in the world.

If you don't laugh, you're going to cry and people are crying. That's why I guess you have lots of people like comedians to keep us laughing.

I don't do drama. I'm a comedian.

I love comedy. I don't approach it any different. I'm not a comedian. I'm not a stand-up. I just do it like a part and personally, I love to watch comedies. If you don't get to do what you like to watch you get frustrated.

I thought I better warn you that I am not one of those politically correct comedians, but it turns out that also I'm not really that racist, homophobic or woman hating either, so you might not notice

When I approach villains, unless it's a drama, I'm a comedian, so I approach most things from a comedic point of view.

If you're a comedian, you are looking for material in daily life.

I always fancied myself more of an actor than a comedian before I realized that only assholes make that kind of distinction.