I want the roast to be like a party where everybody goes and has a good time.

Before you can be all deprecating it's helpful to be self-deprecating.

Life has to keep going, so you can either be a victim the rest of your life and let it drag you down into drugs and alcohol and depression or you can turn it into something good, fun even, you know, and I tell young people who are going through depression that this might be the most important time of your life. This might be what makes you a great artist later on.

It's very rare that an older comedian sort of slips into an old-school clunker. You know, you don't hear too much of that anymore.

I can't defend someone else's jokes. I can only defend my jokes, and I have to live with my own jokes.

In Boston where community policing is so important, they don't necessarily have to like each other, but they know each other. The cops in Boston make it their business to get out of their vehicles, to engage the public, to walk around the neighborhoods. They live in the community that they police. And I think these things help.

My own personal rule is to tell jokes that I think the person I'm making them about can laugh at, to go home and tell their family, oh, my gosh.