Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I like to work on New Year's Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the 'year-end' thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year.
I think a good comedian was probably bullied a little bit. Probably felt doughy and oblong and rhombus-shaped and strange and a little bit of an outsider, and then learned the healing qualities of comedy.
I've been enjoying classes at the gym, where people look at me because I'm fat. At the end of the workout, they're sucking air and I've beaten them because I have more heart, because I had it much harder.
Me and a friend literally had the idea for Wedding Crashers and pitched it, and it was already a script. They go, "That's funny! You should call it The Wedding Crashers." It was almost exactly like that .
Sure, I have friends, plenty of friends, and they all come around wantin' to borrow money. I've always been generous with my friends and family, with money, but selfish with the important stuff like love.
When a woman tries on clothing from her closet that feels tight, she will assume she has gained weight. When a man tries something from his closet that feels tight, he will assume the clothing has shrunk.
I have a very vibrant imposter syndrome that goes on throughout most of my life, but nothing more than when someone has to put a hat on me or some kind of sash and go, 'We're giving you this certificate.'
No matter where you are, the root of you is designed from a young age. So if my confidence was taken as a child, you can gain back a lot of the confidence, but that root of the cavity will still be there.
I hadn't done a comedy for a while. I had directed a very low budget movie called The Ape and it was playing at a festival in Austin. Judd [Apatow] was there and he came and saw it and it's kind of funny.
Things began to improve when I went to Rangoon. To begin with, my father was promoted, which meant he was at home more. The matriarchal society was ended, and for the first time, I went to a boys' school.
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.
I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.
I don't really know, I was thinking about that the other day that there aren't a lot of younger up and comers that I'm that interested in, in the comedy world. Everyone seems to be trying to play it safe.
Christopher Hitchens's autobiography, 'Hitch 22', is a poignant read and very interesting because I have a very poor knowledge of recent political history - or, for that matter, distant political history.
In terms of comedy, I never did five-minute sets or clubs or anything. I just started doing shows. Coming from that theater background, it never crossed my mind that I should start doing five-minute sets.
Theres one fundamental law that all of nature obeys that mankind breaks every day. Now, this is a law thats evolved over billions of years, and the law is this: Nothing in nature takes more than it needs.
[My mother ] will write me an email, and it'll be Shanah Tovah. And the next day it'll be something else, Baruch Hashem Adonai. And I - I'm lost half of the time, but that was the world that I grew up in.
Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.
I've been on a 46-year diet of olives and alcohol. The latter I consume. The former I save and use over again in more alcohol. In my lifetime, I imagine, I have consumed at least $200,000 worth of whisky.
You re-watch 'Napoleon Dynamite', and there's a lot of thrift shopping that goes on in that movie; there's a lot of funny stuff. It's definitely amusing, and paying 99 cents for a samurai sword is amazing.
Every laugh is not equal. They come from different places. That's sort of the challenge I go towards, making sure the laughs are for the reasons I want. It becomes a back and forth dance with the audience.
I've played Beckett. I put on in the 1950s the first Australian production of 'Waiting for Godot.' I played Estragon. The most interesting conversation I've had about Beckett was with a Dublin taxi driver.
As with anything that involves emotional pain, comedy isn't too far behind. There's that element of no matter how painful something is - as long as it is not you that is going through it - it can be funny.
North Carolina right now is going apeshit in a way no state ever has. Take every crazy, angry idea your drunk, right-wing uncle mumbles at Thanksgiving, turn it into a law, and that’s North Carolina today.
John McCain, who once called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson 'forces of evil', has now come out for teaching intelligent design. That is sad, when smart people have to pretend to be so dumb to get elected.
The Senate decided they will be smoke-free. They ordained that all public areas in the Senate are now smoke-free. However, the senators themselves will still be allowed to blow smoke up each other's asses.
It's weird when people ask me, "Why are you so nice?" It's like, "Because that's just what you should do. You should be kind to people." It seems really basic, but it's amazing how many people forget that.
Going through war and living is a very important process. You realize how vulnerable you are and how lucky you are to be in the right place at the right time. As a matter of fact, I have a history of luck.
Comic-Con is interesting because there's so much going on at once, it's literally impossible to do everything. You need clones and some sort of hoverboard so you can surf over the crowd of packed-in nerds.
I used to hang out with grandfather all the time because he used to pick me up from school sometimes, or drive me to my mother's, so I'd be with my grandfather a lot. I used to watch him write his sermons.
Growing up, road trips with Dad were something I hated. Sitting still for hours, singing that stupid song, "100 bottles of beer on the wall. 100 bottles of beer..." Dad, you know, keeping up with the song.
It's a bit odd that nobody seems to be using the correct technical term to describe organized Islamic terrorists. They are not a faction of a religion or a social movement. They are a cult. A suicide cult.
I saw a door that said exit only. So I entered through it and went up to the guy working there and said "I have good news. You have severely underestimated that door over there. By like a hundred percent."
Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib.
I write all the time, but you just want to be careful what you put out. That's all. You want to have the confidence that you've done what you need to do to it, because otherwise it's an exercise in vanity.
I think sometimes I should do more carousing, because I don't do much and maybe it would be fun occasionally. It's hard for me to have fun and I'm a serious thinker and a searcher and funny from the front.
Comedy, I figured, was the thing that came to me the most easily. Playing the trumpet and piano took practice. I thought that was a waste of time. I'd go out on the street corner and be funny. In a minute.
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.
Standup keeps me grounded and keeps me in touch. I get to go from small towns to big cities, across Canada and the U.S., and you're out there and talking to people. You get a sense of what they respond to.
When you get off stage, the audience should know a little bit about you. Not where you are from, but how you see the world. And that's the difference between like a Chris Rock joke, and like an open-miker.
Mmmm... the comedy that matters is the comedy you pull out of thin air. It's a bit like when something funny has happened and you try to explain it to someone else and end up saying, 'You had to be there'.
Mmmm... the comedy that matters is the comedy you pull out of thin air. It's a bit like when something funny has happened and you try to explain it to someone else and end up saying, 'You had to be there.'
That must be strange, cheating on your wife with a flight attendant. They're in bed and she's says, 'In the event that wife should come home early please notice the location of the nearest emergency exit.'
Al Jazeera aired a new tape of Osama bin Laden. It was the usual stuff, he called Bush evil, the Great Satan, called him a war monger. Basically, the same thing you heard at last night's Democratic debate.
I flew this past weekend. I went through airport security and said to the guy, 'Is everything okay?' He said, 'You might want to have that mole on your ass checked out.' That seems a little personal to me.
The latest report is that Osama bin Laden has shaved his beard, is wearing Western clothes and has had plastic surgery. Isn't that amazing? The guy has made just two videos and he's already gone Hollywood.
A lot of Congressmen yesterday were upset when Kenneth Lay took the Fifth. Lay said it wasn't his fault. He had planned on testifying, but when Jeffrey Skilling testified, he took all the really good lies.
Republicans are now saying that Dan Rather should lose his job because he misled the country with bogus information. Which is odd because the Democrats are saying the exact same thing about President Bush.
You know why dogs have no money? No pockets. 'Cause they see change on the street all the time and it's driving them crazy. When you're walking them, he is always looking up at you. "There's a quarter...."
A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it's kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the '60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.