Popular quotes about Comedy! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 58
Comedy is lively, comedy is joy, and that's what keeps us [people] going, we've got to look forward to little, little happiness's. Little, little joys, and comedy is very, very important, it's a vital. We underestimate its value, but we should see more comedies. Comedy is life giving, it's invigorating. I really believe it.
Mel BrooksInterestingly it's when you come to the comedy, that's where a lot of the discussion is. It's like ten people sitting around talking about what is funny. "Is that funny? Is that funnier than that? Is this slightly funnier than this?" I guess that's what it's like when you're making a comedy movie as well, you just have to sit around talking seriously about the nature of comedy.
Paul W. S. AndersonI think it's harder to go from comedy to drama than from drama to comedy. Seeing you dramatic all the time, they crave to see you being silly or funny. But, seeing you in comedy all the time, it's hard to see that person go be serious, for some reason.
Evan PetersI think art is beautiful. It's decoration and adornment. But art is also a really important vessel for social change, and social change begins with thought. And so if you can find humor in something and take a moment to rethink it, you can take a step back and look at your values from a different angle. I think that's a really important way of carrying on with life. I think the best art for me is funny and the best comedy for me is art. Some of my favorite artists are comedians. Comedy is art, and art can be comedy, and the intersection is vital - at least for my own work.
Chloe WiseThe crooks downtown figured out that comedy is like a hammer. It can put up a barn and it can knock down a wall. So they bought it outright and marketed it as Comedy Central.
Lenny BruceIf you make comedy, if you try and make comedy where no one gets upset or offended, you're going to fail.
Tucker MaxW. Kamau Bell is in the vanguard of a new era of American comedy for an unsettling, troubling, and strangely hopeful time. Firmly in the fearless tradition of Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, & Chris Rock. Comedy as common sense purged of the absurd hypocrisy that is Our America.
Vernon ReidI see parody as another form of comedy. If you are making a comedy, there are a lot of different ways to do it. I'm not necessarily always aware of my quote-unquote persona when doing things like that. It's more, "What does the character need at the time?" I'm certainly drawn to certain types of material, there's no doubt about that.
Bruce CampbellI don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.
John RidleyKatey Sagal, you are an incredible actress. You worked on โMarried with Children,โ the show that changed comedy, โSons of Anarchy,โ the show that took comedy to a whole new level and โ8 Simple Rules,โ the show that killed John Ritter.
Anthony JeselnikComedy is like a very cokey, druggy sugar. You get hits of comedy, and it's very, "More, give me more of that stuff," because serotonin is being released in the brain. So it's basically, everyone becomes serotonin junkies, and we are serotonin dealers. And that's what being a comedian is about.
Eddie IzzardSome comics are in it for what they can get out of it. Others are in it for a love of comedy. I think those that are in it for a genuine love of comedy find each other within the circuit and become friends.
Johnny VegasBeing onstage is like being rock star. Whereas if you're doing a movie, it's such a confined space. You know, you do a comedy, it's so hard, too, 'cause with a comedy, there's no vocal reaction, there's no energy that you get back that spurs you on to be funnier because everyone has to be quiet.
Matthew LillardEverybody says how hard comedy is, but, when it comes time to honor things, whether it's on a weekly critical basis or whether it's award time, at that time of the year, comedy is the poor, dumb child of dramatic work.
Ivan ReitmanAnd what could be a hotter ticket than the improbable triumph of 'The Book of Mormon,' the musical-comedy moon shot of the season? Its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of Comedy Central's 'South Park,' are the most unlikely Rodgers and Hammerstein team ever to bowl a thundering strike.
James WolcottWe all know what tragedy is. "Yes, I'd rather not have any more tragedy, please. I'll have comedy, please." Comedy, in the Greek sense, only means that it has a happy ending.
Eric DrookerTo create a comedy major, I ended up starting a comedy night in the basement of my dorm, and I promoted and produced my final project, which meant I faxed press releases from an old Apple IIC, or whatever it was, to newspapers, not knowing if that would work or if that's how you do things.
Eugene MirmanComedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.
Woody AllenThe fact is that comedy is actually too serious to be taken seriously. It may be that comedy touches such deep emotions that people feel better if they can just dismiss it as trivial. Just take a big belly laugh. I have watched people laughing, and for a moment they look-and are-absolutely helpless. Vulnerability. You can be assaulted while you are laughing.
Abe BurrowsAnyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.
Michael CaineI'd done light comedy. In some quarters, About Last Night... is a romantic comedy. So it wasn't like I'd been doing Sophie's Choice my entire career. But for whatever reason, nobody had really given me the room or the ability to be out and out funny. And Lorne [Michaels] and Mike [Myers] and Chris [Farley] and Dana [Carvey], that crop really helped me do that.
Rob LoweI want to go to Australia so bad, do comedy there, and see the people there. It's a great country. I have friends that are Australian that have told me all about it. I want to do comedy there.
Brad WilliamsI did skit comedy online for many years, beginning around 2001. Around 2006 I started watching a lot of food television and got re-interested in food. I come from a very food-obsessed family. But I also wanted to do my own thing, which was the comedy.
Nadia GiosiaI was kind of in an experimental phase with The Disposable Rappers. This is boring to me, because it's true, but when I was a sophomore in high school, I visited my sister in college and saw an improv troupe, and that was a genuine moment for me. It was an actual "Aha!" moment. After I saw that, I said, "I want to do comedy." So The Disposable Rappers started doing improv in addition to rapping, and when I went to college, I very specifically went saying "I want to join a comedy group."
Michael ShowalterYour anger can be 49 percent and your comedy 51 percent, and you're okay. If the anger is 51 percent, the comedy is gone.
Joan RiversThe funny thing about The West Wing is - and I don't know what Aaron Sorkin says about it - but I'm convinced it was a comedy. It's a very intellectual and cerebral comedy, but it was SportsNight in the White House. It had an energy and a vitality and an intelligence and a passion that's rare. And it was extremely difficult to do, because they were so demanding about the dialogue.
Tim MathesonI was sort of trained in drama. I went to theater school. I started on the stage. Comedy is absolutely an essential part of what we do as actors. But I think in the grand scheme of things, comedy was born from tragedy. First there was tragedy and then there were the comedies.
Alex O'LoughlinI'd love to do comedy. I'd probably have to get my laughing fits in check, because generally if I've done comedy, I'm usually the straight character that plays against the very obviously funny character, so that's really hard when the person is really hilarious.
Nathalie EmmanuelThe fact of the matter is, you can't do comedy unless someone is behaving badly. Otherwise, it's not a comedy.
Keegan-Michael KeyThere's a way of doing comedy that feels true to the person doing it, that doesn't feel like clown-work or silly faces and antics, but that feels real - like you're playing a real person who has real thoughts and feelings, and it's very grounded. I started to watch all comedy through that prism.
Andy DalyFred Silverman, the head of ABC, he offered me a lot of comedy series but I told him I'd already been the best comedy series around, "The Odd Couple," and so when he saw that I did Quincy he called my agent and said, Jack turns me down? All my good series and he ends up playing an undertaker." And this was the HEAD of ABC series.
Jack KlugmanA comedy isn't about being funny," said Mrs. Baker. "We talked about this before." "A comedy is about character who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all. That's how I know." "Suppose you can't see it?" "That's the daring part," said Mrs. Baker.
Gary D. SchmidtI wanted to come to Chicago. I also wanted to do "Saturday Night Live." And then I got to a place where I didn't want to do those things anymore.For the sketch comedy thing, I got cast on "MADtv," and that will kill any man's desire to do comedy.
Simon HelbergI've always taken a lot of cues from comedy minds. The guy that discovered me in the very beginning was Joseph Cates. Joe and Gil Cates were the Cates brothers. Gil produced the Oscars for many years. Joe produced a lot of comedy specials, Steve Martin specials, and he discovered me, this 18-year-old kid.
David CopperfieldA lot of people who do drama say comedy is the hardest thing, but, not wanting to sound like a bighead, comedy is easy for me, as I've always been fairly funny.
Nick FrostI know it's the comedian's instinct to say, "Do it, man, nothing's off-limits! It's cool, bro!" I don't know if that's the answer for me. "Do I really want to make a joke about a miscarriage when a woman in the audience might have had one?" I don't worship comedy; at the end of the day I don't fall to the altar of comedy unquestioningly.
Bo BurnhamHopefully people will be reinventing comedy forever and ever. This is just what I do, and it's a type of comedy.
David CrossI was not one of those people who wanted to be a comedian when I was growing up. I liked comedy, but didn't know it was something you could do for a living. I actually wanted to be an attorney. I did do things on the side like improv and sketch comedy, but law was my focus. I was a very bookish, academic kid. When I got out of college, I was really unhappy. I had a great job that I should have loved, yet I was miserable. I slowly realized that was because I wasn't performing. So I just tried stand-up and fell in love with it after one performance.
Aisha TylerI'd love to do a comedy. I'd love to do a two-hander like the old Leathal Weapon movies. I love those, like an action comedy with the straight man and the funny man. I'd love to do one of those. Just got to find one, find a funny man that wants to do one with me.
Jason StathamIt's funny because I think a lot of it is simply... We've never considered ourselves satirists, but because we're on Comedy Central and because we're South Park on Comedy Central, we can do any topic we want.
Trey ParkerI love a lot of comedy movies. I think I fell in love with comedy when I was younger. My brother and I would always sit down and watch some of the classics. Bottle Rocket is one of my favorite comedies.
Sarah WrightI think comedy because of the Internet it has a bigger audience, a bigger fan base. It has fans that understand comedy more than any generation before because there is more guys like you, more guys like me, more guys like Louie CK who talks about it a lot. When you get a chance to see perspective that I don't think you ever got to see before.
Joe RoganThe comedy gods are smiling on me tonight, because I have been saying, for the longest time, that president Bush must set a timetable for removing his head from his ass...and, by god, today they went in and looked for it... They didn't find it. So now we don't know where it is, but at least for once in my life, I get to see the words "Bush", "operation", and "success" in the same sentence.
Bill Maher