Quotes About Funny

What people really want is not to make something funny, but to make something amusing - which, in many ways, is the opposite of funny. To amuse someone is to eliminate discomfort and awkwardness, kind of like a massage for the brain, while to be funny is to point out awkwardness and discomfort. Everyone thinks they want funny, but they really want amusement.

There is something about the vocal quality of the actors who can really do it. Jim Burrows, the great sitcom director who directed Will & Grace and Cheers, when an actor comes in to audition for him, he never looks at them. He just listens. Because funny is funny. You can be fooled by the eye, but if your performance is funny to the ear, it will be funny.

Someone trying to be funny probably isn't as funny as someone who doesn't want to be funny but is and can't help it. Someone being serious or angry might be funny. If you get angry, the first thing I want to do is laugh because I don't know why you're getting that angry. Pathos makes me laugh, funerals make me laugh.

He's a jokester, and that's funny, very funny. Ha-ha. Very funny.

A joke is either funny or it's not funny. If I hear a funny joke, you know what I do? I laugh, that's what I do. I don't start a focus group to see who got hurt by the joke.

I don't get a chance to be funny with the thrillers. I like to be funny, and I think I am really funny. So with 'Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life', it was fun to let loose.

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good.

People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.

I think there's a lack of really, really good funny scripts out there that work on all the levels that they're supposed to - which is to say that they're not just funny but they have interesting characters that people are going to like and be invested in. I've done a bunch of movies that haven't worked but I like to think I've done some that have worked and that's because not only is the comedy there but the characters and storylines are interesting. The characters are real and relateable and people were invested in them.

They say Yogi Berra is funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's funny about that?

If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier

You can't teach somebody how to be funny. You're either funny, or you ain't.

I was funny -- ha-ha, not peculiar. It was a modest currency, like pennies: pedestrian, somewhat laborious, but a currency nonetheless. I was funny, in public, most often at my own expense.

I was funny around my family. My family, they're pretty funny, too.

There are things that I won't joke about, but it's not because I don't think they're funny or they can't be made funny. It's just that they don't fit my particular skill set.

The actors come in and they make characters their own and so Patrick and I have never been the kind to think that our script is the bible. We want to make sure that the story is told, that you stick to the story but if you have to make changes to the character then that's fine. A lot of times there are some funny one-liners, funny things that happen that are out of the ordinary. I like it.

When a man plays a woman in a dress, you're halfway there. It's inherently funny. When a woman plays a man, for whatever reason, it's not that instant kind of funny.

I guess the more serious you play something, if the context is funny, then it will be funny and it doesn't really require you to be necessarily, explicitly humorous, or silly.

When I was a teenager and all these shows were on I was in that business, so I knew a lot of people in the theaters and I saw many of the great shows many times. I would go in and stand in the back - they would let me in, they knew me. I saw Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, and Funny Girl many times just standing in the back.

Bob Dole used to be really funny. Barney Frank can be kind of funny. Bob Kerrey has a good sense of humor.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

I used to like Barbra Streisand films. It was Funny Girl that really turned me on, in a sense, to acting. I remember it specifically being a rainy Saturday afternoon. I couldnt play football, so I stayed in, and I watched Funny Girl.

I like to make jokes; I consider myself a funny person. I just think making jokes about people who are in a situation beyond their control is not funny to them or their families.

It's harder when people are playing along, because it's just not as funny. They're trying to be funny, and it sort of cancels out the whole joke.

I'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held me back. I wanted to be very clever, and funny, but I'm not very clever and not terribly funny. I've finally accepted my limits, and I do what I can do.

I think my sense of humor is really dark and super twisted and stuff like that. It's like, "Is this a funny joke for real? Or am I just rich?" See? That was funny.

I stand by everything I said. I absolutely can defend my material, and I take issue with people who say, "It's just shock value. It's not even funny." I disagree. There's different ways to be funny and to be a comedian.

Anything that is not funny at a certain point will be funny.

The most important thing is to write material that YOU think is funny. If you don't think it's funny, but you're convinced that other people will think it is, well they won't.

With stand-up you meet almost constant rejection. You put yourself out there with your thoughts and your ideas, and you think they're funny, and you hope other people think they're funny too. The only way you're going to find out is when you do it and what the reaction is going to be. So if you're not prepared for that, if you're not willing to go along with that, it's going to be a rough road. But beyond stand-up, in terms of auditioning for acting roles, you don't get most of the roles you audition for - you get a precious few.

Anybody can go onstage and be dirty. You have to be funny, that's the key. You can say anything as long as it's funny. You can't take it too seriously up there. And people coming to see you can't take it too seriously.

People are always surprised that I have a funny side because I'm usually so intense, strong and dramatic. But, I'd love to do something really, really silly and funny.

Oftentimes, a funny situation is funny because it's uncomfortable or weird. The most memorable stories, or the stuff that you repeat to your friends, it's not like, "Oh, I had a pleasant day, nothing happened on the bus today." It's when strange things happen, when you become uncomfortable or knocked out of your own reality, those are the things that are interesting.

"I've learned what's funny verbally ain't so funny on e-mail: They don't hear your intonations. Melissa broke up with somebody over that. She tried to tell him: "That was a joke!" But he just didn't get it. Mick Jagger said, "F- 'em if they don't get the joke." And I love him. That comes with age: Knowing it's their problem, not mine."

The middle class is so funny, it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.

Habits are funny things. What's funny, or rather tragic, is that bad habits are so predictable and avoidable. Despite this, there are people by the millions who insist on acquiring habits that are bad, expensive, and create problems. The habit they weren't going to get, got them!

I opened the door. He looked down at my shirt and smiled. "Funny," he said. "Don't call my boobs funny," I answered.

It's funny looking at yourself. You know how it is when you look back at old pictures? It's just funny looking back at yourself walking and talking at age 14

My wife is funny. And I dabble in it. So being funny is big around our house. But what's surprised me is my daughter can do an English accent. I don't know how she learned this.

I make people laugh hard; I'm a comic, that's just the way it is. And I make them laugh because I'm funny, not because I'm filthy. The subject matter is dirty, but the pictures I paint are really funny. A lot of comics don't understand that that's what it's about. It's just, "I'll be dirty and they'll laugh." Nobody's becoming a superstar that way.

I find anger to be funny. I find people that are so wrapped up in their own personalities to be funny, and lost. Like myself in real life.

Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of über-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, "Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny."

I don't consider myself a funny girl, but I do have a sense of humor because I don't take myself too seriously. Taking yourself too seriously, I think, is not right. Life is supposed to be funny. Because if you can laugh about yourself when you made a mistake or when you did something wrong, you can learn from it.

Ben Stiller isn't funny - honest. Ben Stiller is very funny, and smart, and cute, too, in a neurotic, New York kind of way.

Couples are really funny, because if they are together, they can fight and do fun things together. In Jane Austen books, marriage is the end of the story, but I actually think a really funny couple could be a fun thing to watch.

People would ask me, 'Is he as funny at home as he is in the movies?' ... I would have to answer, 'Well, he can be funny. But he is also very serious. He has insomnia and if we him up early, he would bawl the hell out of me'.

I think it's always funny when you see kids do Shakespeare. When I was at school, I was in Hamlet. I played Claudius, who's supposed to be a 60-year-old man, and I was like 18. It's inherently ridiculous seeing 18-year-old boys with gray beards. That's always funny.

Sometimes just being an immigrant, I read things the wrong way, and that can be funny. Or I'll put the emphasis on the wrong word, and that can be funny. I have an affinity for comedy because I like to watch them. It's an honor to make comedies because I love being able to pop something into the DVD player and laugh. I love doing it.