In my work, there is a lot of storytelling. The storytelling is not a new thing. Back in the [Howard] Thurston days, the [Harry] Houdini days, the [Harry] Blackstone days, it was stories, but the stories were, "We're going to the Egyptian temples, and we're going to vanish the Prince of Thebes," and, "On my last trip to the Orient ..."

It's so funny, all the similarities that we have [with David Copperfield] of being obsessed young people and finding a way to be around the people doing what we want to do.

I always see other people as predecessors and admire them.

I think Jim [Carrey], in the best possible way, thought, "I need to do different things to establish to the audience that I'm not going to do the same thing every time."

College is the reward for surviving high school. Most people have great fun stories from college and nightmare stories from high school.

I loved working in stand-up, and I always dreamed that I could make a movie about it. I didn't know if I would have the courage to, because if you make a bad movie about stand-up, then comedians will mock you for the rest of your life. They're still mad about movies made 25 years ago. But it was always a dream of mine, and I was glad I finally came up with an idea that allowed me to explore it in such a way that it's not all about stand-up, but stand-up creates a great backdrop for another type of story.

[My] dream writers room: "'Taxi.' I need to write for someone named Judd."