Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.

Everybody wants to laugh - you know that. They need to laugh... people need to laugh.

I'm a charming coward; I fight with words.

People have a comic bent or an angularity to their thinking, and those are the people who make jokes. And it's usually people who were in an environment, when they were young, where jokes were at a premium, or at least considered important to a life. My parents always listened to the comedy radio shows, we went to the comedy movies, and my parents appreciated comedy. So kids listen and follow what their parents like.

Improvisation is just writing in front of an audience.

If you can get a laugh out of a name, you're ahead of the game.

When you denigrate people, they have two ways to fight back - with their fists and guns, or their mouths. And mouths are seemingly the easiest way to not get hit back. If people are laughing, they're not going to hit you.