Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Making people laugh is what I've been doing since I was like four or five years old. I still have a lust, I still have a passion. I don't care about how I look, I'm dedicated to the laughs.
I've always wanted to do more significant stuff. I think of myself as well-informed, but the hardest thing to do is talk about politics and current events and be funny and not just preachy.
We (men) would rather lose an arm out a city bus window than tell you simply, “You’re not the one.” We are quite sure you will kill us or yourself or both—or even worse, cry and yell at us.
I really think the biggest honor, as a comic, is to get roasted by either the Friars Club or the Comedy Central or someone like that. Because it really shows, you know, that you've arrived.
I was desperate for new material, so anything I can write a joke about that works is in the act. No matter who it offends, or who it bothers - doesn't matter if its something my wife hates.
Pace, rhythm and timing. Pace, rhythm and timing is what it's about. The content's got to be great, but then it's got to be delivered. It's a tricky thing to do, and it takes a lot of work.
I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.
I think of myself as a fairly attractive girl and always have, thanks to my mom. I was brought into this world thinking I was gorgeous because my mother was extremely devoted to this notion.
Did you ever drink so much of a certain type of alcohol that you get so sick that you can never drink the same kind again ? I've decided that's how I'm going to quit drinking. One-at-a-time.
It was early on when I was really focused and obsessed with doing The Tonight Show and Letterman and stuff like that. Then, I quickly realized that those things don't make or break a career.
He doesn’t have to love your CD collection. He doesn’t have to love your shoes. But any good, mature guy better make an attempt to love your friends and family—especially when they’re great.
The internet's a creepy thing, especially if you have kids. It says something very creepy about the fact that I use the same machine to masturbate with as I use to teach my kid the alphabet.
For me, a tour show should have a narrative; it should have an arc. It shouldn't just be, "Here's one joke, here's another joke." That's not my style. They all have to somehow link together.
I don't know who in my family thinks very fast at all, including me. The things that people see me do onstage are written, so it doesn't have to be very quick if you have all day with a pen.
I hate to let people down. I was like that in sports and I was like that in comedy. I was like that at work. When I worked General Motors and stuff like that, when I say something, I mean it.
I definitely think the formula to making my character seem sweet is to let him act like a jerk, give him a redeeming moment, and have a sweet song playing over the background when it happens.
By being politically correct, you're closing your mind to a different point of view. Which sounds a lot like prejudice. Which is definitely not politically correct. See what I just did there?
I usually do quite well with presents, but the problem with Christmas is it's such a big build-up and such a big day that if someone tests you the year after, you've got no idea what you got.
Richard Pryor had real sincere and vulnerable moments. Now it seems so cheesy if you stop your act and say, "This is why we have to help them kids. We've got to make sure them kids can read."
I'm not tied to the news cycle. I can do an episode on cultural appropriation, not on Rachel Dolezal. We might make a joke about her, but that's not going to be the focus of the conversation.
A big part of becoming a funny person was a major defense mechanism. Onstage, especially as a woman, I've had to be really tough. The second you show a crack, the audience can literally leave.
I been seeing newspapers every Sunday morning, white dudes be in there in their drawers, never having no bulge in they drawers. Smiling at you. If I ain't have no bulge, I wouldn't be smiling!
We only hear success stories. You don't hear about the hundreds and hundreds - the overwhelming majority that don't go anywhere. This is a more realistic portrayal of what happens in startups.
No one but John Oliver is going to be able to figure out the code of making a 20-minute monologue on futures, securities, and currency speculation interesting, funny, and poignant politically.
My uncle was a preacher, and I used to go watch him preach. He was also funny, so I'm very 'preacher-ish' on stage, not by intent but because that's where I learned to talk in front of people.
If you're an artist like a really, really long time, it stops being a performance. I'm not performing anymore. I reveal myself to the audience... I show you some of me. It's not a show no more.
A dangerous fire retardant chemical is being found in women's breast milk. My wife's breastfeeding, but you know, you gotta be an optimist. I'm like, well, maybe it's making my child fireproof.
I'm a nightclub comic. That's what I do. I work in the clubs uncensored because my mind is uncensored, and those are the thoughts that I have. I do the kind of comedy that I would enjoy seeing.
I don't want a chat show or to be on telly every day, as that's not my business; my business is standing in front of people and making them laugh, and I want to see how far I can get with that.
It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don't talk about the arts there much on career day.
Charlie Chaplin said something to the effect that humor is an act of defiance, that we must laugh in the face of our helplessness in the forces of nature or go insane. And where is he now? Dead.
Studio execs were like, ''Lord of the Rings!' People want to see sword-and-dragon-type things!' No, people just want to see great stories. Hollywood always takes the wrong lesson from successes.
I started a podcast about 'X-Files' and ended up on it. Then I started a podcast about video games, and I'm in the new 'Mass Effect' game. I have to pick the stuff I love and do a podcast on it.
The Punch Line is one of the best clubs in the world. It's an intimidating place if you're a younger comic, but the community is so lucky to have a place with such a high threshold and standard.
Getting a Grammy nomination for 'Brooklyn' meant a lot, especially because, as an album, it was one that was very personal to me but also one that I self-produced and had gone outside the label.
The girls I grew up with they're living normal, adult lives. So they call me now and they're like, 'Amy, I'm pregnant.' And I still react like, 'What are you going to do? I'll drive you, I guess.
America...Do not touch my TV, my DVD, my stereo, my dual-deck VCR. Do not touch my old school, my new school, my slow jams, my party jams, my happy rap, and you better not touch...My James Brown.
It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.
It used to be that in media, Johnny Carson used to be the most important person when he would invite you over to sit on the couch after your comedy skit. Now it's whatever Howard Stern says goes.
Only lately, like within the last few years, have I had people actually do an impression of me to me, which weirds me out to think of what they have picked up on, without ever realizing it myself
I watch a happy person doing stand-up, and I go, "What the hell is this? This person's happy!" You need internal conflict. You need the guy to be out of step with society. It's a tool for comedy.
I loved writing 'Two Brothers' more than anything else I have written. It's the first book I've written that I've always known I wanted to write. Having said that, it also kept me awake at nights.
When I started in the clubs, I had to work places where didn't nobody else want to work. I had to do clubs where street gangs were, had to do motorcycle gangs, gay balls and things of that nature.
The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you're just breaking in and that's working, and that's - you're one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience there.
Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright.
Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.
The thing is, in the dating profiles it says 'spiritual,' but not with a specific religion. And so I pretty much try to meditate, but I have a very hard time concentrating on things other than me.
I remember once doing a benefit for a Jewish charity and wearing an enormous cross. I kind of don't let the audience dictate anything to me. I sort of dictate to them, and they better be on board.
So it took me five years because in the interim I have been doing a lot of personal appearances and movies and some television series that went into the plumbing and I stopped writing for a while.
Only lately, like within the last few years, have I had people actually do an impression of me to me, which weirds me out to think of what they have picked up on, without ever realizing it myself.