I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian.

The only time you should look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.

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.

What's the good thing about being an actor, you can do more things. Not just being a comedian, not going overboard but expressing myself within the confines of a film.

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.

I'm a comedian first. I've learned how to act. I just draw on life experiences and that's how I've learned. I didn't take classes or anything. I don't need no classroom.

I thought that I was going to be a stand-up comedian or an actress. Turns out, I can't act my way out of a paper bag and stand-up comedy is a lot harder than it appears.

They proved that if you quit smoking, it will prolong your life. What they haven't proved is that a prolonged life is a good thing. I haven't seen the stats on that yet.

I really will never understand pushing back on comedians who are like, "I'm like a politician campaigning and shaking hands with these people. They're going to be okay."

As a largely unsuccessful comedian, I've become someone that younger people sometimes find and ask for advice, which I'm happy to give, even though it makes me feel old.

I used to want to be a war photographer, and I used to want to be a ballerina and a comedian. I used to want to be a writer. I invalidated myself; it's a mistake for me.

Comedians walk out, get a feel for the crowd. If it's not going good, we change directions. If we got to drag your momma into this thing, we will. Whatever we got to do.

I'm a comedian at the beginning and the end of the day. I'm not affiliated with any campaign, nor do I generally find politics interesting enough to plan to be involved.

The comedians I liked were Bill Cosby and Steven Wright, like just always as a comedic actor. I always liked Gary Larson, who's really funny for a cartoonist, obviously.

The nice thing about anger is that, as an emotion, it's strong enough to unplug me from the comedian's mind for a minute and just be a frustrated member of the citizenry.

The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly.

I think you develop strong instincts when you're a comedian. You have to pay your bills by making people laugh every six seconds... or not. I had to do that for 22 years.

I'm a comedian, and I like to work on my live show, and if I'm doing television, I don't have time to work on my live show, and I can become a lame comic, and that sucks.

Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.

I never felt like I was stealing anyone's fans as much as I was introducing some younger people to comedy who will eventually find tons of other comedians that they love.

The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I'm surprised I'm not diabetic.

The most frightening thing about playing Dick Gregory is I've never done stand-up before, and I had to learn how to be a stand-up comedian, which was a bit of a challenge.

You can succeed as a terrible director, but try doing that with stand-up: try being a terrible comedian and getting up on stage. The funny will win out very, very quickly.

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.

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.

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...

It's so clear cut with a comedian - you have that reflex action, whereby you laugh or you don't. And so you either love us or you simply cannot see why people are laughing.

Jamie Kilstein is amazing and I will be spreading the word. He has the spark that energized my conscience. We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night

Here's what I'm afraid of. I know a lot of comedians, friends of mine, who just got into the "Doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter. They're just gonna laugh anyway."

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.

People always call me a comedian. And I don't really see myself like that. I guess I just consider myself an actor who does comedy. But who wants to do other things as well.

I always made people laugh, and everybody wanted me to sit at the table with them. I don't joke as much as I used to, but I can still be a little comedian every now and then.

I have too many influences to name. I like a wide variety of stuff, which I think has been helpful. I liked every comedian I saw on TV growing up in the '80s. Every comedian.

I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me.

Every comedian is just doing the comedy they find funny. This is me and it's not clean in any way. I could get a lot more work on TV playing clean but it's never interesting.

Your number one job as a comedian is to be aware. You're supposed to understand the temperature in the room more than anyone on the planet - that's the whole craft of comedy.

I never thought I'd be a comedian. But, growing up, I simply loved watching comedy. The '80s was huge for comedy in the US. Eddie Murphy blew me away with his film Delirious.

I am a comedian but it's usually not a compliment to be called a prop comedian but I guess I sometimes use props. And I always confuse humorist with comedian. That's strange.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

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.

When you do late-night TV, you do different jokes in the same place every night. When you're on the road as a comedian, you do the same jokes in a different place every night.

As a comedian who's used to, like, punching the jokes, it's hard to teach yourself that that's not the strong choice in the sense that you have to really have to dial it back.

My theory about comedians is that their greatest fear is other people laughing at them. So comedy is an attempt to control and manipulate the thing they find most frightening.

Every hairstyle I have is funny because my barber is a standup comedian by the slightly unfortunate name of Paul Sweeney. His cuts are fantastic but the chats are even better.

I became a dancer in self-defense. I was doing a comedy monologue and didn't know how else to get off, so I danced off. I've been dancing ever since, but I'm still a comedian.

I love stand-up. I look at it as a way to always stay productive. I couldn't imagine only being an actor or a writer. Because what the hell do I do when I'm not working? Mope?

I believe in being honest with myself. If there's one thing I hate it's when a comedian is great and won't admit it. I've never met one like that, but if I did, I'd hate them.

Disasters are funny to me. As a comedian you learn from failure, so I'm always trying to put myself in a situation that does not seem ideal for my comedy and see how it works.

I wasn't the good looking guy, I wasn't the hot chick, I wasn't the fat guy, I didn't have a catchphrase, I didn't wear a silly hat. I was just trying to improve as a comedian.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

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