Quotes and Sayings about Comedy
"Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all."
- Don Adams
(Related: Comedy, Wonder)
"I started out with comedy in college, but had my major in Recreation Administration - which meant I wasn't going to get a real job - so I started doing a little standup."
- Carlos Alazraqui
(Related: College, Comedy, Job, Recreation)
"Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor."
- Sholom Aleichem
(Related: Life, Dream, Comedy, Fool, Poor, Tragedy)
"This hiatus coming up I'm looking at a comedy because I need the balance."
- Khandi Alexander
(Related: Balance, Comedy)
"I like comedy, I love it very much, I love laughing."
- Khandi Alexander
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me."
- Khandi Alexander
(Related: Work, Comedy, Teaching)
"We are living in the machine age. For the first time in history the comedian has been compelled to supply himself with jokes and comedy material to compete with the machine. Whether he knows it or not, the comedian is on a treadmill to oblivion."
- Fred Allen
(Related: History, Time, Age, Comedy, First, Jokes, Living, Machine)
"While awaiting sentencing, I decided to give stand-up comedy a shot. The judge had suggested I get my act together, and I took him seriously."
- Tim Allen
(Related: Act, Comedy)
"Comedy 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 Allen
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Problems)
"The difference between tragedy and comedy: Tragedy is something awful happening to somebody else, while comedy is something awful happening to somebody else."
- Aaron Allston
(Related: Comedy, Difference, Tragedy)
"Comedy is second nature for me."
- Anthony Anderson
(Related: Nature, Comedy)
"It's a lot of work and I also feel like I've done it. I miss comedy. And I also think that, from purely a logistical standpoint, that the day-to-day schedule on a comedy allows you to have a life, much more of a life, than on a drama."
- Adam Arkin
(Related: Work, Life, Comedy, Day, Drama)
"An actor who is good at comedy can also be very good at drama, but not necessarily vice versa."
- Desi Arnaz
(Related: Actor, Comedy, Drama, Vice)
"At times we were criticized for doing too much slapstick. I don't believe in mild comedy, and neither does Lucy."
- Desi Arnaz
(Related: Comedy)
"One of my biggest problems with comedy was that I did not understand some of the jokes."
- Desi Arnaz
(Related: Comedy, Jokes, Problems)
"It doesn't look great if you cancel the reigning Best Comedy Program, you know, you're gonna take a hit from a... from sort of a public relations standpoint."
- Will Arnett
(Related: Comedy, Public)
"I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I've seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they're told they are supposed to be playing comedy."
- Bea Arthur
(Related: Actors, Being, Comedy)
"Monty Python crowd; half of them came from Cambridge, and half of them came from Oxford. But, there seems to be this jewel, this sort of two headed tradition of doing comedy, of doing sketches, and that kind of thing."
- Rowan Atkinson
(Related: Comedy, Tradition)
"There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience."
- George P. Baker
(Related: Comedy, Difference, Tragedy)
"Don't get me wrong, there are sometimes if I go and see a really funny comedy, that I wished I had smoked a joint. I'll be honest with you. That's the truth."
- Stephen Baldwin
(Related: Funny, Truth, Comedy, Wrong)
"It is really hard to do comedy; it takes a lot of energy and focus. It's rather like music: It's a lot of hitting notes precisely."
- Christine Baranski
(Related: Comedy, Energy, Focus)
"Jackass: The Movie is great. I think it's in the tradition of physical comedy, which I'm really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body."
- Matthew Barney
(Related: Body, Comedy, Gravity, Tradition)
"People don't understand that that's really what it is. They're looking for a magic phone number or something. And to a certain extent, I understand that, because comedy is treated so much as a stepping stone by a lot of people."
- Todd Barry
(Related: People, Comedy, Magic)
"There seems to be more comedy for comedy's sake."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Comedy)
"Well, I have since seen you at Tinkle. It's a comedy show started by David Cross, me and Jon Benjamin. It features a wide variety of acts for all tastes and seasons."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Comedy, Seasons, Variety)
"I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of those things."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Funny, People, Act, Being, Comedy, Variety)
"I'm traveling the world, ripping rooms apart with my stupendous comedy."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Comedy, Traveling, World)
"I mean, I guess I started during the comedy boom, so it was literally like, on Sunday you could decide you wanted to be a comic, and on Monday, you could be on stage."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Comedy)
"I basically did comedy there for about a year, and then moved to New York. If I had it to do over again, I would have booked myself on the road for at least a year."
- Todd Barry
(Related: Comedy, Road)
"A straight factor is important in any comedy, because you need something to tee it up and also to ground it."
- Jason Bateman
(Related: Comedy)
"You can't always go by the book, even in comedy."
- Alan Bates
(Related: Comedy)
"Friends applaud, the comedy is over."
- Ludwig van Beethoven
(Related: Comedy, Friends)
"We are in desperate need of a well-done romantic lesbian comedy."
- Jill Bennett
(Related: Comedy, Lesbian, Romantic)
"I certainly love doing comedy and feel most comfortable near it."
- Candice Bergen
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"I will always love to perform standup comedy."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Love, Comedy, Will)
"Unquestionably, standup comedy is and has always been an art form."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Art, Comedy)
"It's a great counter to doing the soap because it's a comedy. It's real physical comedy."
- Corbin Bernsen
(Related: Comedy)
"Physical comedy is my favorite thing in the world to do."
- Jason Biggs
(Related: Comedy, Favorite, World)
"You always draw on your experiences with live audiences to know how to do comedy on films. You're working for a laugh that may or may not come six months later, but you're working in a vacuum at the time you are doing it."
- Theodore Bikel
(Related: Time, Audiences, Comedy, May, Months)
"The male image has been so pulled down by situation comedy in the last 15 years, it is frightening. I don't like what has happened to the American male."
- Bill Bixby
(Related: American, Comedy, Years)
"The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy."
- Bjork
(Related: People, Comedy, Country, Criticism, English)
"And the sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career, it expunged all memory of its existence."
- William Peter Blatty
(Related: Truth, Career, Comedy, Existence, Memory)
"There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt."
- Erma Bombeck
(Related: Humor, Comedy, Hurt, Laughter, Pain, Tragedy)
"To listen to your own silence is the key to comedy."
- Elayne Boosler
(Related: Comedy, Key, Silence)
"The one that was most fun was That's My Bush; the part that I did for Comedy Central. That was a hoot. That was more fun that one should be allowed to have."
- Timothy Bottoms
(Related: Comedy, Fun)
"I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn't turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did."
- Jo Brand
(Related: Work, Time, Opportunity, Comedy, Risk)
"I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific."
- Jeff Bridges
(Related: Love, Marriage, Comedy, Tragedy)
"Even if you didn't see the movie, you'd see two words you'd never seen put together before - comedy and Muslim. Comedy is friendly - it's the least offensive word in our language."
- Albert Brooks
(Related: Muslim, Comedy, Language, Word, Words)
"I value comedy. I value somebody who can be funny."
- James L. Brooks
(Related: Funny, Comedy, Value)
"I love romantic comedy, but I think you have to have another idea that you're chasing along with romantic comedy."
- James L. Brooks
(Related: Love, Idea, Comedy, Romantic)
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Comedy, Open, Tragedy)
"Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: People, Chance, Comedy, Rhetoric)
"Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Life, Comedy)
"Dark comedy is very difficult. You have to bring the audience in and push them away at the same time."
- Pierce Brosnan
(Related: Time, Comedy)
"The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't."
- Lenny Bruce
(Related: Art, Comedy, Laughter, Man)
"I love comedy, so you want to make them happy, make them laugh."
- Delta Burke
(Related: Love, Comedy, Want)
"Comedy is tragedy plus time."
- Carol Burnett
(Related: Time, Comedy, Tragedy)
"I do comedy shows. I make fun of myself, first of all."
- Steve Burton
(Related: Comedy, First, Fun)
"I think I've only done one horror movie, Psycho III. That was a walk in the park compared to a romantic comedy."
- Carter Burwell
(Related: Comedy, Horror, Romantic)
"I own four copies of Robin WIlliams's Live on Broadway comedy special for HBO. One in Wilmington, one in L.A., one in my trailer, and one at my parents' house. I can watch it over and over again and it never gets old. He is the funniest, wittiest man on the planet!"
- Sophia Bush
(Related: Comedy, Man, Old, Parents)
"The original Dean Martin Comedy Hour handed me some hysterical sketches. I've got highlights on tons of these variety shows, given to me by their great writers. I'd love to be doing all that again."
- Ruth Buzzi
(Related: Love, Comedy, Martin, Variety, Writers)
"I got everybody on my side through comedy."
- Ruth Buzzi
(Related: Comedy)
"Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end."
- Sid Caesar
(Related: Truth, Comedy, End)
"Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas."
- Michael Caine
(Related: Comedy, Writing)
"Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write."
- Michael Caine
(Related: Life, Actor, Comedy)
"Theo does comedy now, and he's traveling around the country doing comedy, and I actually just saw him, he's from Louisiana, and I just saw him when I went home to visit my family in Louisiana. I saw his comedy show and he was brilliant."
- Trishelle Cannatella
(Related: Family, Home, Comedy, Country, Now, Traveling, Visit)
"This is my chance to get out there and appease the fans of my music as well as show people that I do do standup comedy because a lot of people don't know that's where I started."
- Nick Cannon
(Related: Music, People, Chance, Comedy, Fans)
"Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with."
- Drew Carey
(Related: Comedy, Exaggeration)
"I'd love to do acting, but it'd definitely have to be comedy. I can't do serious. It's completely beyond me."
- Allan Carr
(Related: Love, Acting, Comedy)
"I thought comedy would be the hardest thing I could do, and if I could do that, I could do anything."
- Rodney Carrington
(Related: Thought, Comedy)
"Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people."
- Angela Carter
(Related: People, Comedy, Tragedy)
"Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it's painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it's extremely painful."
- Dick Cavett
(Related: Comedy, Years)
"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"
- Dick Cavett
(Related: Cause, Comedy, Television)
"Every student of comedy should see Dame Edna at least twice."
- Dick Cavett
(Related: Comedy)
"Comedy is only as stupid as you are smart."
- Brian Celio
(Related: Comedy)
"The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part."
- Miguel de Cervantes
(Related: Character, Comedy, Fool)
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
- Charlie Chaplin
(Related: Life, Comedy, Tragedy)
"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl."
- Charlie Chaplin
(Related: Comedy, Pretty)
"Charlie Chaplin's genius was in comedy. He has no sense of humor, particularly about himself."
- Lita Grey Chaplin
(Related: Humor, Genius, Comedy, Sense)
"The best comedy I ever did was when people didn't know who I was."
- Chevy Chase
(Related: People, Comedy)
"When you are the lead in a romantic comedy, you have to worry about people really liking you."
- Morris Chestnut
(Related: People, Comedy, Romantic, Worry)
"The radio was my big influence. Comedy came from the instinctual feel I had for language."
- Dominic Chianese
(Related: Comedy, Influence, Language)
"The funny thing is, Dennis Miller got me back into comedy."
- Tommy Chong
(Related: Funny, Comedy)
"When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy."
- John Cleese
(Related: Acting, American, Comedy, Kids, Principles, Problems, Teenage, Writing)
"I want to write a book which is the history of comedy."
- John Cleese
(Related: History, Comedy, Want)
"Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited."
- John Cleese
(Related: Comedy)
"I consider a CD or a comedy collection as a record of what I've been doing, and I try to wrap it up and start new material."
- Kate Clinton
(Related: Comedy)
"I never thought of myself in comedy at all... I loved going to the theatre and seeing people wearing beautiful clothes come down the staircase and start to dance."
- Imogene Coca
(Related: Thought, People, Dance, Clothes, Comedy, Theatre)
"As a kid I was short and only weighed 95 pounds. And though I was active in a lot of Sports and got along with most of the guys, I think I used comedy as a defense mechanism. You know making someone laugh is a much better way to solve a problem than by using your fists."
- Tim Conway
(Related: Sports, Comedy, Defense)
"I've known Harvey for over 40 years and I worked with him on the Burnett show for 11 years. I guess you could say we're about as close as you can get to being a comedy team."
- Tim Conway
(Related: Being, Comedy, Years)
"I get all of my comedy from CNN."
- Rob Corddry
(Related: Comedy)
"To be perfectly honest, drama is a lot simpler than comedy."
- Nikki Cox
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"All the parts I get offered are character and comedy parts, and I probably wouldn't get them if I had a different face. So I'm glad I have a comedy face."
- Mackenzie Crook
(Related: Character, Comedy)
"As for Tenacious D, of course it could work as a full length movie; all it requires is a great writer and great director with an ability to think outside of conventional film comedy."
- David Cross
(Related: Work, Ability, Comedy, Film, Writer)
"John was the smartest and most amazing comedian I've ever worked with. I think more than teaching me about acting or comedy, he taught me about life and the love of people and respect of people."
- Kaley Cuoco
(Related: Life, Love, People, Acting, Comedy, Respect, Teaching)
"I considered the years in Hollywood nothing but an interim. What I always wanted was to be was a musical comedy star."
- Arlene Dahl
(Related: Comedy, Hollywood, Nothing, Years)
"When I was nine, we'd take a bus to the seaside. Coming back, we'd take turns entertaining, singing songs and the like. I tried some stand-up comedy. I had a captive audience in that bus. Then I realized I wanted to do more than that."
- Jim Dale
(Related: Comedy, Singing, Songs)
"Comedy is so hard to do, so it was very cool to do dead pan humor."
- Brittany Daniel
(Related: Humor, Comedy)
"I want to do drama, light comedy, the whole range."
- Bobby Darin
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Light, Want)
"It's that I wasn't suited to do the kind of comedy that these people were coming to hear - mainstream comedy."
- Larry David
(Related: People, Comedy)
"I think that for the most part, when I started doing comedy, it had become very commercialized."
- Larry David
(Related: Comedy)
"You can (be a middle-aged comic) if you work very hard at it, because comedy is really hard."
- Andrew Denton
(Related: Work, Comedy)
"I love physical kinds of comedy and getting down and dirty and doing stunts. When I was growing up, I was always getting into fights with guys and usually punching out boys my age because I was a lot bigger and tougher. So I'm naturally accustomed to putting myself into the headspace of a girl who can take care of herself."
- Cameron Diaz
(Related: Age, Love, Boys, Care, Comedy, Growing up)
"I've mainly been in dramas, so this is one of my first comedy kind of performances in Cecil B. Demented."
- Stephen Dorff
(Related: Comedy, First)
"I love good comedy. I don't like bad comedy."
- Michael Dorn
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"I'm a big fan of Albert Brooks, Nichols and May. I'd like to follow in their footsteps and do comedy films."
- Illeana Douglas
(Related: Brooks, Comedy, Footsteps, May)
"I love sketch comedy. My real goal is to do something with Albert Brooks. That would be my fantasy. I stay up night and day thinking up stuff he might find funny."
- Illeana Douglas
(Related: Funny, Love, Goal, Brooks, Comedy, Day, Fantasy, Night, Thinking)
"My favorite work is The Full Monty because I got an Oscar for it. But it was really hard work at the time. Sometimes comedy is not a bundle of laughs to actually do."
- Anne Dudley
(Related: Work, Time, Comedy, Favorite, Hard work)
"Comedy is defiance. It's a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it's the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale."
- Will Durst
(Related: Fear, Hope, Anxiety, Comedy, Contempt, Defiance, Laughter)
"I'm trying my hand at writing. I'm writing a couple of projects for HBO, a half hour comedy and a miniseries."
- Charles S. Dutton
(Related: Comedy, Projects, Trying, Writing)
"Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing."
- Dick Van Dyke
(Related: Love, Comedy, Dancing, First, First love, Singing)
"I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl."
- Dick Van Dyke
(Related: Business, Life, Comedy)
"When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy."
- Leslie Easterbrook
(Related: Acting, Comedy, Desire, First, Opera, Play, Theater)
"If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy."
- Roger Ebert
(Related: Teen, Comedy, Hollywood, Right, Violence)
"I don't do comedy so much although I would like to do a comedy."
- Aaron Eckhart
(Related: Comedy)
"I'd like to do a romantic comedy."
- Aaron Eckhart
(Related: Comedy, Romantic)
"Most modern comedy is crap."
- Adrian Edmondson
(Related: Comedy)
"You're entering dangerous land when you start theorising about comedy."
- Adrian Edmondson
(Related: Comedy, Land)
"I enjoy doing everything, comedy and drama. I just look for the characters really and what they offer."
- Chiwetel Ejiofor
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"I love doing comedy - I get a laugh out of it, it's not so serious."
- Carmen Electra
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Comedy, Drama, May)
"I loved that about her because I knew it would open the door for a lot of comedy, because I knew that the conflict would come, because not many people live like the way she does."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: People, Comedy, Conflict, Open)
"I'll probably stick to comedy for the time being. I mean, a great piece of work is a great piece of work, and I'm up for good work anytime. But I do love comedy!"
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Love, Time, Work, Being, Comedy)
"Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that's definitely a challenge."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: People, Belief, Challenge, Comedy)
"It proved to me, though, that comedy is so much harder."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Comedy)
"Especially while television I think is going through some growing pains or is in need of - I think current comedy is a bit, uh, not happening, you know?"
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Comedy, Television)
"I think you can tell the human condition better through comedy."
- Hector Elizondo
(Related: Comedy)
"You're at the top of your game if you do comedy."
- Hector Elizondo
(Related: Comedy)
"You don't get a chance to take a breath but when you do, you have some really good comedy moments that ease up on the tension that the movie is centered around which is Kim being kidnapped and her son and husband being kidnapped and the jeopardy that they're in."
- David R. Ellis
(Related: HusbSon, Being, Chance, Comedy, Jeopardy, Moments, Tension)
"Comedy. I think that's something I'd really like to do."
- David R. Ellis
(Related: Comedy)
"I have an Italian comedy at the Venice Film Festival."
- Robert Englund
(Related: Comedy, Film, Venice)
"They have what you call a black night where they have black people come in for just one night only to watch comedy, and you get all your local drug dealers, thugs, prostitutes, all of them come in, sit down, and listen to you tell jokes. They the hardest people to make laugh."
- Mike Epps
(Related: People, Comedy, Jokes, Night)
"I left Indiana, and I ain't been back since. I've been doing comedy and paying my bills."
- Mike Epps
(Related: Comedy)
"I think in life, the sense of humor and comedy always exists."
- Mike Epps
(Related: Humor, Life, Comedy, Sense)
"You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy."
- Elliott Erwitt
(Related: Care, Comedy, Concern, Humanity)
"I consider myself a serious musician. Doing a comedy show does not take away from that in any way."
- Kevin Eubanks
(Related: Comedy)
"There's nothing more difficult to do than comedy."
- Robert Evans
(Related: Comedy, Nothing)
"If you want good sketches, go pick up Sid Caesar. The best of Your Show of Shows. That's the greatest sketch comedy you'll ever see on television."
- Jamie Farr
(Related: Comedy, Television, Want)
"I did sketch comedy for years. I've always enjoyed it."
- Jamie Farr
(Related: Comedy, Years)
"We love the Stooges, and young kids today don't watch them. They think it's their dad's comedy. So we thought we could reintroduce them to a new audience."
- Bobby Farrelly
(Related: Love, Thought, Dad, Comedy, Kids, Today)
"In comedy, though, it's good to get feedback from the audience about what they find funny."
- Bobby Farrelly
(Related: Funny, Comedy)
"In the West audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero."
- Chow Yun Fat
(Related: Love, Romance, Action, Audiences, Comedy, Play, Romantic)
"Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act."
- Marty Feldman
(Related: Act, Comedy)
"Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way."
- Will Ferrell
(Related: Work, People, Comedy, Feet, Night)
"A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal."
- Will Ferrell
(Related: People, Childhood, Comedy, Events, Pretty)
"All you have in comedy, in general, is just going with your instincts. You can only hope that other people think that what you think is funny is funny. I don't have an answer but I just try to plough straight ahead."
- Will Ferrell
(Related: Funny, People, Hope, Comedy)
"I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are really the same for doing drama, in that it's essentially about listening. The way I approach comedy, is you have to commit to everything as if it's a dramatic role, meaning you play it straight."
- Will Ferrell
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Listening, Meaning, Play)
"If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs."
- Tina Fey
(Related: Comedy, Dress, Lady, Man, Old, Stairs, Want, Writers)
"There was really a snobbery from people in film - they did not want people who had come from television. It was the poor relation of show business, and especially situation comedy."
- Sally Field
(Related: Business, People, Comedy, Film, Poor, Snobbery, Television, Want)
"When I read the script, I liked the script very much and I thought it was a marvelous part for her, because I think it is a change of pace. I mean, we know how wonderful she is in romantic comedy."
- Albert Finney
(Related: Change, Thought, Comedy, Romantic)
"I would like to do maybe a smaller romantic comedy."
- Linda Fiorentino
(Related: Comedy, Romantic)
"Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real."
- Colin Firth
(Related: People, Choices, Comedy, Errors, Wrong)
"With comedy I can search for the profound."
- Dario Fo
(Related: Comedy)
"Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible."
- Dario Fo
(Related: Comedy, State)
"Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors."
- Dave Foley
(Related: Comedy, Poverty)
"My theory is, if you can do comedy and you can be in a scene with someone like Brad Garrett and hold your own, you've really got a future in this business."
- Faith Ford
(Related: Business, Comedy, Future, Theory)
"I think comedy is one of the hardest things to do."
- Faith Ford
(Related: Comedy)
"First of all, to defend my work, I had to believe that I am doing a totally silly, stupid, innocent comedy."
- Milos Forman
(Related: Work, Comedy, First, Silly)
"Well, a lot of politics is communicating with people, and obviously comedy has something to do with that. I've been a producer and led people. Also, being a comedian, you're under pressure."
- Al Franken
(Related: Politics, People, Being, Comedy, Pressure)
"Well, I think that there's a value to comedy in and of itself."
- Al Franken
(Related: Comedy, Value)
"I always approach comedy roles pretending they aren't funny."
- Brendan Fraser
(Related: Funny, Comedy)
"The person I have admired the most in comedy terms would be Eric Morecambe, who is my total hero."
- Dawn French
(Related: Comedy)
"In tragedy every moment is eternity; in comedy, eternity is a moment."
- Christopher Fry
(Related: Comedy, Eternity, Tragedy)
"Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith."
- Christopher Fry
(Related: Faith, Truth, Comedy, Despair)
"There's a glorious sense of freedom in comedy, just allowing myself to tell jokes, allowing myself to interrupt myself and tell old African folk stories that I made up - or didn't - and Jamaican stories."
- Neil Gaiman
(Related: African, Comedy, Folk, Freedom, Jokes, Old, Sense)
"I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it."
- Neil Gaiman
(Related: People, Comedy, Sense)
"I thought people would ask me really personal questions because I've shown more of myself, but it's a comedy, and people understand that it's a game we play."
- Charlotte Gainsbourg
(Related: Thought, People, Comedy, Play, Questions)
"And you can't hide in a comedy scene either. You have to give in to the scene and commit."
- Jennifer Garner
(Related: Comedy)
"I always loved comedy but I didn't start formally until I was in college."
- Ana Gasteyer
(Related: College, Comedy)
"In television, women can really run anything. It can be a comedy, it can be a drama, it can be genre, it can be anything. But in films, women are still getting to the top."
- Sarah Michelle Gellar
(Related: Women, Comedy, Drama, Television)
"You know what I would really like to do? I'd like to do a half hour drama with comedy in it."
- Sharon Gless
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"Yeah, even a black comedy. Where it's a little eerie. I'd love to do that. But there are about three really fabulous ones on the air now and I don't know if I can do any better than that. I'd like to sort of forge new ground."
- Sharon Gless
(Related: Love, Comedy, Now)
"Women and minorities have excelled beautifully in comedy, but very few women are the lead in a drama."
- Sharon Gless
(Related: Women, Comedy, Drama)
"It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with a bit of comedy in them and keeping the pace of the movie right and that's exactly what he did. He was observant of a world he didn't understand but he told a wonderful story."
- Cuba Gooding, Jr.
(Related: Comedy, Job, Right, World)
"I'd like to come back because I really miss doing situation comedy."
- John Goodman
(Related: Comedy)
"I don't like to be entertaining. I don't like the feeling of being entertaining. If there was a musical or a comedy that was not just for entertainment but was rooted in something I could relate to on a real level, then I think I would do it."
- Ryan Gosling
(Related: Being, Comedy, Entertainment, Feeling)
"I do like any kind of project that has both comedy and drama in it because in life you don't have one day where everything is funny then the next day everything is dramatic."
- Topher Grace
(Related: Funny, Life, Comedy, Day, Drama, Project)
"I'm also doing a special for Comedy Central called Autobiography. It's going to be a spoof of Biography."
- Kathy Griffin
(Related: Autobiography, Comedy)
"Avoiding humiliation is the core of tragedy and comedy."
- John Guare
(Related: Comedy, Tragedy)
"I used to write bits and pieces of comedy material for various comics that were at the Windmill... as well as my film job, I was under contract, I was allowed to do that and everything."
- Val Guest
(Related: Comedy, Film, Job)
"I had a terrible job letting me do anything that wasn't comedy."
- Val Guest
(Related: Comedy, Job)
"At those times I got into... I suppose you call it a rut. I used to do comedy, comedy, comedy and I suddenly thought I ought to break away from this somehow."
- Val Guest
(Related: Thought, Comedy)
"You know, dramas are much more expensive to do than say a comedy, so any kind of deficit like that is picked up on when it comes time for them to pick up new shows."
- Paul Guilfoyle
(Related: Time, Comedy)
"It's good Xerox is known for its copying machines, and it's good Jim Carrey is known for comedy."
- Steve Guttenberg
(Related: Comedy, Machines, Xerox)
"Unless you're Jack Lemmon or Cary Grant, there are few guys who can do comedy and drama."
- Steve Guttenberg
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"It's both funny and sad which seem to me to be the two basic ingredients of good comedy."
- Tony Hancock
(Related: Funny, Comedy)
"Comedy is so fun. I don't know how these people can make movies and work on them for four months and they're these sob stories. I don't know how emotionally you get through that."
- Colleen Haskell
(Related: Movies, Work, People, Comedy, Fun, Months)
"I don't want to sit and cry for an hour in a movie. I'd rather have an action or a comedy."
- Noah Hathaway
(Related: Action, Comedy, Want)
"My new movie, Fools Rush In, is a romantic comedy and the girl I play in that is very warm, very sweet."
- Salma Hayek
(Related: Comedy, Fools, Play, Romantic)
"We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Comedy, Tragedy)
"To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best."
- Eric Idle
(Related: Funny, Comedy, Songs)
"I don't know if it's a romantic comedy but I'm in the beginning of the first of the season of "The West Wing." We shot it last year. I don't know. If anyone asks me to be in one, I'll jump on it."
- Jason Isaacs
(Related: Beginning, Comedy, First, Romantic)
"You know, stand-up comedy is where I pretty much started out."
- Brion James
(Related: Comedy, Pretty)
"It's a comedy thriller, brilliantly written and it's full of twists and turns at every page. When I was reading it I was desperate to get to the end to find out what happens, it really hooks you."
- Louise Jameson
(Related: Comedy, End, Reading)
"I'm in the mood for another Moonstruck experience, for another romantic comedy."
- Norman Jewison
(Related: Experience, Comedy, Romantic)
"If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you've got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that."
- Dwayne Johnson
(Related: Time, Audiences, Comedy, Ego, Pretty)
"Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining."
- Dwayne Johnson
(Related: People, Goal, Comedy, Night, Wrestling)
"Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter."
- Chuck Jones
(Related: Art, Comedy, Laughter)
"Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations."
- Chuck Jones
(Related: People, Comedy)
"Comedy is a very, very, very stringent business."
- Chuck Jones
(Related: Business, Comedy)
"I would say that fifty percent of my show is killer comedy."
- Davy Jones
(Related: Comedy)
"I'm doing comedy development at National Lampoon."
- Kato Kaelin
(Related: Development, Comedy)
"I love a good laugh as well, I think that's so important in life, which is probably why I've dabbled in comedy writing as well as horror. I think if you can make someone laugh or smile it's the most special thing in the world."
- Paul Kane
(Related: Love, Life, Comedy, Horror, Smile, World, Writing)
"I was drafted and went to Korea where I had an opportunity to create a production team that did dramatic and comedy shows. I had also done a little disc jockeying."
- Casey Kasum
(Related: Opportunity, Comedy, Production)
"I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view."
- Stacy Keach
(Related: Comedy)
"I think people are always looking for a good comedy."
- Catherine Keener
(Related: People, Comedy)
"God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."
- Garrison Keillor
(Related: Funny, God, Actors, Comedy, Play, Trouble)
"I can cry at the drop of the pin. But comedy is hard for me; it's the timing."
- Moira Kelly
(Related: Comedy)
"Harpo Marx looks like a musical comedy."
- Walter Kerr
(Related: Comedy)
"Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success."
- Val Kilmer
(Related: Success, Comedy, Years)
"Partly because the town is just finicky, there are strange Catch 22 clauses in the consciousness of this community and one of them was that you, I found out, you can't do a comedy unless you've just done a comedy."
- Val Kilmer
(Related: Comedy, Community, Consciousness)
"But comedy I'd love to do as much as humanly possible."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Work, Actor, Comedy, Theatre, Years)
"I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Character, Comedy, Habits, Irony)
"About 25 years ago, I was in an apartment, and next door, they put on the radio, so I struck the wall with my fist, but they did not put the radio down. I took a tool and banged until I made a hole through the wall. It was like a comedy movie."
- Klaus Kinski
(Related: Comedy, Years)
"You can't get all of your news from Jon Stewart, especially since it's a comedy show."
- Joe Klein
(Related: Comedy, News)
"And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy."
- Robert Klein
(Related: Comedy, Drama, School)
"I'm really not feeling one way or the other with comedy or drama, I'm just sort of doing projects that I've been finding really fun to be a part of."
- John Krasinski
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Feeling, Fun, Projects)
"Blonde is dumb comedy, red hair is smart, sexy comedy."
- Lisa Kudrow
(Related: Comedy, Dumb, Hair)
"Vegas means comedy, tragedy, happiness and sadness all at the same time."
- Artie Lange
(Related: Happiness, Time, Comedy, Sadness, Tragedy)
"Comedy and drama are both challenging to me."
- Nicholas Lea
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"Comedy is just to me, maybe it's a natural knack, if I can see where the joke is in the writing and I can see where the setup is and I can tell this is the way to make it."
- Matt LeBlanc
(Related: Comedy, Writing)
"And if you have great writing, it's really easy, but if it's not so great and you have to work a little harder, I could tell where the work needed to be done but comedy is just fun."
- Matt LeBlanc
(Related: Work, Comedy, Fun, Writing)
"In comedy, you have to be unafraid to hang from the tree branch naked in the high wind and you have to be absolutely unafraid to look ridiculous and silly."
- Matt LeBlanc
(Related: Comedy, Silly, Wind)
"It was just at the end of the golden era of BBC comedy, which was fantastic."
- John Leeson
(Related: Comedy, End)
"Comedy is much more difficult than tragedy-and a much better training, I think. It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh."
- Vivien Leigh
(Related: People, Comedy, Tragedy, Training)
"It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is."
- Jack Lemmon
(Related: Life, Comedy, Drama)
"There was so long from when we did the pilot and then when the show was eventually picked up by Comedy Central - and, in fact, we had to shoot the pilot twice."
- Thomas Lennon
(Related: Comedy, Fact)
"Good comedy is ageless."
- Ted Levine
(Related: Comedy)
"I really enjoy comedy. It's a real challenge."
- Ted Levine
(Related: Challenge, Comedy)
"Apparently nobody really read it, it was a cheap movie, it fit their schedule in terms of things so fine, let the guy make that high school comedy. I used to work with Mel Brooks so they figured oh it's going to be one of those really silly movies and that's how it got made."
- Barry Levinson
(Related: Movies, Work, Brooks, Comedy, School, Silly)
"In ten minutes, I'm thinking, 'OK, you know what? I love these guys. They're really smart, they're really good, they've got a good sense of comedy, under their guidance, I think maybe this could come out OK.' But I didn't like the part."
- Eugene Levy
(Related: Love, Comedy, Guidance, Sense, Thinking)
"A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world."
- Jerry Lewis
(Related: Babies, Comedy, Machine, Trouble, Woman, World)
"What you aspire to on a sitcom is the feeling of live comedy."
- John Lithgow
(Related: Comedy, Feeling)
"It's a very tough time for the playwright. Broadway has become almost a musical comedy theme park with all these long-running shows."
- John Lithgow
(Related: Time, Comedy)
"Right now, I'd like to just continue on a series where I am doing good work with a balance of comedy and drama. That and do occasional features and movies."
- Mario Lopez
(Related: Movies, Work, Balance, Comedy, Drama, Now, Right)
"I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band."
- Courtney Love
(Related: Music, Comedy)
"Nobody should try to play comedy unless they have a circus going on inside."
- Ernst Lubitsch
(Related: Comedy, Play)
"Comedy is so hard; it's so much harder than drama. The pacing of it, the energy of it."
- Josh Lucas
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Energy)
"When I left school I was full of angst, like any teenager, and I channeled it all into comedy."
- Matt Lucas
(Related: Comedy, School)
"I mean comedy is something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about."
- Matt Lucas
(Related: People, Comedy, Opinions)
"Comedy is exaggerated realism. It can be stretched to the almost ludicrous, but it must always be believable."
- Paul Lynde
(Related: Comedy, Realism)
"With any half-hour comedy, it kind of takes on its own life and finds itself."
- Seth MacFarlane
(Related: Life, Comedy)
"As you know it is a comedy so everything is a little bit pushed. That's what's funny about this kind of movie is you can laugh about the absurdity, and the bad side of life."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Funny, Life, Absurdity, Comedy)
"Our first gig was a battle of the bands. We did 45 minutes of comedy and never played a note - and we won!"
- Cheech Marin
(Related: Battle, Comedy, First)
"The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers."
- Marc Maron
(Related: Development, Comedy, Intimacy, Jobs, Profession, Uniqueness)
"Comedy is obviously a matter of personal taste and the world always needs a clown and some people have no taste at all and any clown will do."
- Marc Maron
(Related: People, Comedy, Needs, Taste, Will, World)
"There's always been physical suffering in comedy."
- Don Martin
(Related: Comedy, Suffering)
"What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke."
- Steve Martin
(Related: Art, People, Comedy)
"Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty."
- Steve Martin
(Related: Business, Comedy, May, Pretty)
"With comedy, you really want to work things out beforehand."
- Tim Matheson
(Related: Work, Comedy, Want)
"I had a flair for comedy and could give a sustained performance."
- Jessie Matthews
(Related: Performance, Comedy)
"Well, being a Canadian, I love SCTV, and I think it's the basis for all good North American comedy, so I compare everything to that."
- Melissa Auf der Maur
(Related: Love, American, Being, Comedy)
"Is it spoken word? Kinda, but that's a weird area. Is it comedy? Well, it's funny but no, it's not comedy."
- Bruce McCulloch
(Related: Funny, Comedy, Word)
"I got involved in improv comedy. It settled me down when I was getting wild. I was sort of an evil teenager smashing up my cars and drinking and driving, let's just say, a lot."
- Bruce McCulloch
(Related: Comedy, Drinking, Driving, Evil)
"I don't really like comedy."
- Bruce McCulloch
(Related: Comedy)
"I don't love comedy but I can watch someone who's kind of interesting forever. I think a waitress who's having a bad day is a lot more fun than Robin Williams doing forty minutes of material."
- Bruce McCulloch
(Related: Love, Comedy, Day, Fun)
"Yes, they allowed us to play around a lot because, like we said, the director's such a good comedy director."
- Kevin McDonald
(Related: Comedy, Play)
"Why do we laugh at such terrible things? Because comedy is often the sarcastic realization of inescapable tragedy."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Comedy, Sarcastic, Tragedy)
"If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul."
- Roger McGough
(Related: Poetry, Father, Soul, People, Performance, Children, Comedy, Dying, Reading, Talking, Want)
"I would love to do a comedy spoof, like a Spinal Tap kind of thing."
- Matthew McGrory
(Related: Love, Comedy)
"Yes, I would say my comedy is grunge, evidenced by the fact my jokes have put an end to big-hair glam comedy."
- Joel McHale
(Related: Comedy, End, Fact, Jokes)
"I don't really know of the Jewish tradition of comedy, only the Jewish tradition of not keeping your mouth shut. Complaining about all that is hard, unfair or ridiculous in life-having strong feelings, and not being able to suppress them. That, to me, is Jewish."
- Fred Melamed
(Related: Life, Feelings, Being, Comedy, Complaining, Tradition)
"This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one."
- Ismail Merchant
(Related: Comedy, Right, Witty)
"I'm a comedian, for God's sake. Viewers shouldn't trust me. And you know what? They're hip enough to know they shouldn't trust me. I'm just doing stand-up comedy."
- Dennis Miller
(Related: Trust, God, Comedy)
"Every movie I do, or when I'm on the sketch comedy show, I don't really get into it until I have an outfit or something funny with my head or face or something."
- Kel Mitchell
(Related: Funny, Comedy)
"We didn't know anything about comedy duos - Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis - we didn't know anything about that. Kim Fields showed us a tape of Martin and Lewis and their old shows and they come through the curtain so we started doing research on them."
- Kel Mitchell
(Related: Comedy, Martin, Old, Research)
"Life is neither comedy or tragedy, life is what you make of it."
- Radha Mitchell
(Related: Life, Comedy, Tragedy)
"Comedy comes from conflict, from hatred."
- Warren Mitchell
(Related: Comedy, Conflict, Hatred)
"As the purpose of comedy is to correct the vices of men, I see no reason why anyone should be exempt."
- Moliere
(Related: Men, Purpose, Comedy, Reason, Vices)
"The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them."
- Moliere
(Related: Men, Comedy, Duty)
"Strangely, Dante's Divine Comedy did not produce a prose of that creative height or it did so after centuries."
- Eugenio Montale
(Related: Comedy, Prose)
"I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable."
- Rick Moody
(Related: Comedy, Sadness, Trying)
"My portrayal of Fagin was all to do with my experience in comedy and revue."
- Ron Moody
(Related: Experience, Comedy)
"Comedy is ridiculously hard. And if the rhythm is not right, if the music or the line is not right, it's not funny."
- Julianne Moore
(Related: Funny, Music, Comedy, Right)
"You know, comedy's hard. With drama, you have a responsibility to the emotional truth, but with comedy, you have emotional truth and you have technique on top of it."
- Julianne Moore
(Related: Truth, Comedy, Drama, Responsibility)
"The kinds of shows that seem to work now, the comedy shows, are those which require very little attention. They're superficial and I like articulate comedy."
- Mary Tyler Moore
(Related: Work, Attention, Comedy, Now)
"Together with script writers Syd green and Dick Hills, we worked on the comedy ideas for this series."
- Eric Morecambe
(Related: Ideas, Comedy, Writers)
"If you elect a matinee idol mayor, you're going to have a musical comedy administration."
- Robert Moses
(Related: Comedy)
"There's a lot of comedy in Intermission but it's got this depth. It's not comedy for comedy's sake - it's informed by something else. I like stuff like that."
- Cillian Murphy
(Related: Comedy)
"Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail."
- Benito Mussolini
(Related: Comedy, Fraud, Socialism)
"Comedy. It was just huge in my house. Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness, Monty Python and all those James Bond movies were highly regarded."
- Mike Myers
(Related: Movies, Comedy)
"One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria."
- V. S. Naipaul
(Related: Comedy)
"The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh."
- Leslie Nielsen
(Related: Comedy, Style, Violence)
"I've always been part of comedy. One of the things about our family was that if we were reasonably funny with each other, particularly my two brothers and myself, when my father was upset with something you'd want to make sure in some way you made him laugh. Because when he didn't laugh, you were in trouble!"
- Leslie Nielsen
(Related: Family, Funny, Father, Brothers, Comedy, Want)
"I like that kind of 'straight-faced' comedy. I like to be straight-faced and outrageous."
- Leslie Nielsen
(Related: Comedy)
"When you make a drama, you spend all day beating a guy to death with a hammer, or what have you. Or, you have to take a bite out of somebody's face. On the other hand, with a comedy, you yell at Billy Crystal for an hour, and you go home."
- Robert De Niro
(Related: Death, Home, Comedy, Day, Drama)
"The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up."
- Denis Norden
(Related: Money, Comedians, Comedy, Song, Writers)
"And if you can offer an explanation as to why it doesn't work then you've got to the whole root of comedy."
- Denis Norden
(Related: Work, Comedy)
"I was a failed actor but I still wanted to show off, so I ended up doing live comedy."
- Graham Norton
(Related: Actor, Comedy)
"Comedy is difficult, especially slapstick. The trick is to have fun while you are performing it."
- Maureen O'Hara
(Related: Comedy, Fun)
"The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass."
- Laurence Olivier
(Related: Purpose, Comedy, Disgust, Drama, Emotions, Exercise, Expression, Light, Office, Tears, Terror, Tragedy)
"I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage."
- Patton Oswalt
(Related: Being, Comedians, Comedy)
"I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures."
- Brian De Palma
(Related: Time, Character, Acting, Comedy)
"Reviewers said Ghost Country was rich, astonishing and affecting in the way it blended comedy, magic, and a gritty urban realism in a breathtaking ride along Chicago's mean streets."
- Sara Paretsky
(Related: Chicago, Comedy, Country, Magic, Realism)
"It'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 Parker
(Related: Funny, Comedy, Want)
"Jerry Bruckheimer creates comedy, he just doesn't realize because he's a turd."
- Trey Parker
(Related: Comedy)
"A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs."
- Alexander Payne
(Related: American, Being, Comedy)
"I think comedy is more my instinct and more what I'm geared towards."
- Austin Peck
(Related: Comedy, Instinct)
"Especially when you deal with comedy, you have got to be really honest because it's the honesty and the spontaneity that causes people to chuckle, that catches people."
- Austin Peck
(Related: People, Honesty, Causes, Comedy, Spontaneity)
"There is a universality to comedy."
- Simon Pegg
(Related: Comedy)
"Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live."
- Amy Poehler
(Related: Comedy, Trying, World)
"I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side."
- Parker Posey
(Related: Funny, People, Comedy, Deep, Depression, Order, Want)
"The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy."
- Dawn Powell
(Related: Comedy, Repetition)
"The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power)."
- Dawn Powell
(Related: War, Love, Death, Comedy, Disease, Greed, Lust, Man, Tragedy, Vanity)
"Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile."
- J. B. Priestley
(Related: Society, Comedy, May, Smile)
"With While You Were Sleeping, it was so much fun and such a Cinderella story, that I didn't want to do another romantic comedy. I wanted to do the opposite."
- Bill Pullman
(Related: Comedy, Fun, Romantic, Want)
"I wear so many disguises on the show that only a real comedy fan might spot me."
- Paul Putner
(Related: Comedy)
"Comedy is very controlling - you are making people laugh."
- Gilda Radner
(Related: People, Comedy)
"The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House."
- Harold Ramis
(Related: Thought, Opportunity, Comedy, First)
"You just make sure you don't screw it up. It's going to work as long as you don't mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy."
- Harold Ramis
(Related: Work, Comedy, Moments)
"I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed."
- Carl Reiner
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"In a comedy it helps enhance things that were already there."
- Ivan Reitman
(Related: Comedy)
"Then my first film was something called Cannibal Girls, which sounds like a horror movie but was actually kind of a goofy comedy with horror elements. Like a horror spoof."
- Ivan Reitman
(Related: Comedy, Film, First, Girls, Horror)
"Everybody 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 Reitman
(Related: Time, Work, Comedy, Dumb, Honor, Poor)
"I never like to do parodies. I never do. It's just not my style of comedy."
- Ivan Reitman
(Related: Comedy, Style)
"Between us and the writers, it was comedy hour the whole time. We could hardly get through it."
- Buddy Rice
(Related: Time, Comedy, Writers)
"I've played comedy before but not that much. I mostly do get drawn to darker material."
- Natasha Richardson
(Related: Comedy)
"Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy."
- Jay Roach
(Related: Opportunity, Character, Comedy, Old, Parents, Trying)
"My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy."
- Jay Roach
(Related: Comedy, Criticism, Favorite, Film, Theory)
"Hypocrisy is great fodder for comedy."
- Mo Rocca
(Related: Comedy, Hypocrisy)
"Honestly we never lied to people about who we were. Usually the wackier interviews came to pass because the interview subjects, aware that we were Comedy Central, just wanted to get their stories out."
- Mo Rocca
(Related: People, Comedy)
"To me, comedy is a great occupation because I don't really worry that much about what other people think of me."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: People, Comedy, Occupation, Worry)
"The Comedy Store in LA, it's a really loose room and it's really dark and creepy and a great place to explore your own thoughts onstage."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: Thoughts, Comedy)
"Comedy is really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: Art, Comedy, Content)
"If I'm really considering doing film from now on then that is the smart thing to do, or you can go either way. You can just do the same character over and over again and make a different comedy like over and over again."
- Ray Romano
(Related: Character, Comedy, Film, Now)
"It's easier to play a dim character, for me, because I have a natural bent for comedy. It's not intrinsic for me to be crafty, so I would have to go outside for a source of origin. I think of myself as pretty dim."
- Stephen Root
(Related: Character, Comedy, Play, Pretty)
"Doing comedy for film is always a challenge because you are in the hands of the editor after the fact. I am hoping I can do some more soon, I enjoy doing comedy."
- Tim Roth
(Related: Challenge, Comedy, Fact, Film)
"I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me."
- Richard Russo
(Related: Comedy)
"If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke."
- Richard Russo
(Related: Funny, Work, Comedy)
"Clearly romantic comedy is my franchise genre, I don't mind saying that, it's true. I love doing them and hopefully always will do them."
- Meg Ryan
(Related: Love, Comedy, Mind, Romantic, Saying, Will)
"But I find with Francis Bacon, some of the things were in the place, and someone who was connected with these schools of thought, and someone who had a motivation that equals the scope of the comedy and the tragedy in the plays."
- Mark Rylance
(Related: Motivation, Thought, Comedy, Schools, Tragedy)
"I'm doing 5000 seat theaters and audiences are going nuts, it's fantastic and it makes me very happy. I'm dirty, but not like this; I just do comedy that I find funny. I'm working on a new tv show for cable and it's not set up yet."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Funny, Audiences, Comedy)
"Yet there are some people - Steve Allen would dissect comedy forever; he's a really funny guy, but he would love talking about comedy. I'm doing it right now and you all seem bored."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Funny, Love, People, Comedy, Now, Right, Talking)
"The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Nature, Comedy, Saying, Wrong)
"Now people want what the movie was about, which is violent comedy. And that's really what The Aristocrats is based on - what will a family do out of desperation."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Family, People, Comedy, Desperation, Now, Want, Will)
"I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Comedy)
"25, 30 years ago, that meant something, they were making some money. And they were doing all sorts of comedy, screaming at the audience, basically crowd control. And then there was the whole urban comedy scene."
- Bob Saget
(Related: Money, Control, Comedy, Years)
"People know me. I'm not going to produce any cartwheels out there. I'm not going to belong on Comedy Central. I'll always be a tennis player, not a celebrity."
- Pete Sampras
(Related: People, Celebrity, Comedy, Tennis)
"My comedy is different every time I do it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing."
- Adam Sandler
(Related: Time, Comedy, Hell)
"The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don't know if I'll ever be as good a dad as my dad."
- Adam Sandler
(Related: Dad, Family, Comedy)
"When I tell people I'm a comedian they say, 'Oh, are you funny?' I say, 'No, it's not that kind of comedy.'"
- Susan Sarandon
(Related: Funny, People, Comedy)
"I was never really comfortable doing comedy. Though it was good the first couple of years, there were problems, and it became a stifling experience. I was happy it ended."
- Rick Schroder
(Related: Experience, Comedy, First, Problems, Years)
"Well my biggest dream is to be in a romantic comedy."
- Izabella Scorupco
(Related: Dream, Comedy, Romantic)
"I just thought it could make a really cool movie. It's not that it's just a buddy comedy but it's all about two guys hating each other and towards the end they're good friends. I liked that these two guys were best friends from the very beginning, and they're crazy."
- Sean William Scott
(Related: Thought, Beginning, Comedy, End, Friends)
"The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it's so much fun."
- Jerry Seinfeld
(Related: People, Friends, Fun, Strangers, Talk)
"All the jokes in my films, the comedy, they're not me, I just try to hold a big mirror up to us."
- Yahoo Serious
(Related: Comedy, Jokes)
"Making people laugh is magic. I feel like if you have humility, then you can do anything in comedy."
- Amanda Seyfried
(Related: People, Comedy, Humility, Magic)
"Black Comedy is a farce that is played in the dark, as you know, with the lights full on. It's the Chinese convention of reversing light and dark, and exactly where anybody is at any given moment is the play."
- Peter Shaffer
(Related: Comedy, Light, Play)
"Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldn't be able to survive."
- Garry Shandling
(Related: Comedy, Defense)
"Well Washington DC what are you going to do. They think the capitol steps are the state of the art in comedy. You try to drag them into the 20th century let alone the 21st and they refuse to come with you."
- Harry Shearer
(Related: Art, Comedy, State, Washington)
"My mom and dad are both in stand-up comedy, so that's where I started, that's where I got everything. My roots are holding the mic."
- Pauly Shore
(Related: Dad, Mom, Comedy)
"You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact, it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life, comedy."
- Neil Simon
(Related: Life, People, Comedy, Fact, Present, Schools, Vocation)
"I was in the Air Force and was a boom operator (in-flight refueling). I got my comedy start in the Air Force."
- Sinbad
(Related: Comedy, Force)
"Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films."
- Douglas Sirk
(Related: Opportunity, American, Comedy, Project, Scandal)
"All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie."
- Todd Solondz
(Related: Comedy, Want)
"After the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, songs became part of the story, as opposed to just entertainments in between comedy scenes."
- Stephen Sondheim
(Related: Comedy, Revolution, Songs)
"Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy."
- Barry Sonnenfeld
(Related: Men, Comedy, First, Paris)
"When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor."
- Terry Southern
(Related: Thought, Comedy)
"Because it's uncensored cable, I think we'll be able to do the kind of sketch comedy that really hasn't been seen before. We can actually finish jokes."
- Aries Spears
(Related: Comedy, Jokes)
"There's got to be structure and great comedy. When you start with that, everything else falls into place."
- Aries Spears
(Related: Comedy)
"Eddie Murphy was the Michael Jordan of comedy. He had a full range of abilities."
- Aries Spears
(Related: Comedy)
"When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn't do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me - action pictures."
- Sylvester Stallone
(Related: Action, Comedy)
"I started writing this feature comedy in New York - a Chris Farley vehicle. The script was decent. When I got to LA, I met some new friends in film school and had them read my script and give me notes."
- David Steinberg
(Related: Comedy, Film, Friends, School, Writing)
"There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy's heart stops, and you're the one who has to fix it!"
- Jon Stewart
(Related: Heart, Comedy, Hell, Jobs)
"I don't devalue comedy as compared to drama. Not one bit."
- Ben Stiller
(Related: Comedy, Drama)
"I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy."
- Ben Stiller
(Related: Movies, Career, Comedy)
"Creative comedy is like growing geraniums in a mine field."
- Jerry Stiller
(Related: Comedy)
"We were the only ones interested in comedy. Everybody else wanted to be Martin Scorsese."
- Matt Stone
(Related: Comedy, Martin)
"The day of the wedding went like these things generally do, full of anxious moments interspersed with black comedy."
- Janet Street-Porter
(Related: Wedding, Comedy, Day, Moments)
"If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy."
- Nicole Sullivan
(Related: Act, Actor, Comedy, First, Want)
"I think if I have any kind of unique gift, it's more in the comedy area than it is in the dramatic area."
- Susan Sullivan
(Related: Comedy)
"And then also I think it's harder for women because comedy is so opposite of being ladylike."
- Wanda Sykes
(Related: Women, Being, Comedy)
"It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians."
- Wanda Sykes
(Related: People, Comedians, Comedy, First)
"Then you had people who wanted to get into comedy just to get a TV deal."
- Wanda Sykes
(Related: People, Comedy)
"I think it's because my comedy is in your face, and it comes from a place that's real."
- Wanda Sykes
(Related: Comedy)
"In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed."
- Wislawa Szymborska
(Related: Comedy, Tragedy)
"I remember going to Bob Preston's dressing room because I was losing a laugh - as you do in a long run. He said, 'Give me the script. That's where you're going off the road.' That's comedy. It's never the line itself; it's in the foundation."
- Jeffrey Tambor
(Related: Comedy, Losing, Road)
"My family's always been really funny. I feel like comedy's hard. I feel like it's so important."
- Christine Taylor
(Related: Family, Funny, Comedy)
"Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them."
- Twyla Tharp
(Related: Soul, Comedy, Emotions)
"It's always been said that comedy comes mostly out of the dark side anyway."
- Alan Thicke
(Related: Comedy)
"Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear."
- James Thurber
(Related: Comedy, Famous, Obscurity, Satire, Saying, Wit, Witty)
"The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel."
- James Thurber
(Related: Comedy, Limitations, Rules, Taste)
"The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it."
- James Thurber
(Related: Home, Success, Quality, Comedy, Laughter, Mirth, Smile)
"My real name is Scott Thompson. I could have gone by that name, but when I started doing comedy I thought I needed to go by something that has a little more of a hook."
- Carrot Top
(Related: Thought, Comedy, Name)
"I'd really been wanting to do a television series. I was looking for a comedy."
- Jeanne Tripplehorn
(Related: Comedy, Television)
"It takes intelligence to make real comedy, and it takes a reality base to create all that little stuff I like to do that makes you giggle inside."
- Chris Tucker
(Related: Intelligence, Comedy, Reality)
"Comedy is ugly. It's honest, it's raw."
- Aisha Tyler
(Related: Comedy, Ugly)
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: Funny, Being, Comedy)
"I started to do a study on how not to do stand-up comedy. Yeah, it's lonely work. You die, you die alone. It's you, the light, and the audience. If you win, you win big. If you lose, you lose big time."
- Jim Varney
(Related: Time, Work, Comedy, Light, Lonely, Study)
"I also want to return to doing stand-up. I've become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again."
- Johnny Vegas
(Related: Audiences, Comedy, Want)
"Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training."
- Christopher Walken
(Related: Actor, Comedy, Theatre, Training)
"I would recommend that anyone who wants to do comedy on TV to do radio first."
- David Walliams
(Related: Comedy, First)
"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Comedy, Tragedy, World)
"The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Comedy, Tragedy, World)
"Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Nature, Poetry, Character, Comedy, Imitation, Rules, Tragedy)
"Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Life, Comedy, Tragedy)
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Life, Comedy, Tragedy)
"I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive."
- Julie Walters
(Related: Comedy, Instinct)
"Comedy, at least the way I write comedy, is just drama with jokes."
- Rob Walton
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Jokes)
"Why would they have gone to the trouble to hire the best comedy writers in the business to write funny material for us to play straight, if the children in our audience were the only audience."
- Burt Ward
(Related: Business, Funny, Children, Comedy, Play, Trouble, Writers)
"The real reason for comedy is to hide the pain."
- Wendy Wasserstein
(Related: Comedy, Pain, Reason)
"You won't find me in a romantic comedy. Those movies don't speak to me. People don't come to talk to me about those scripts, because they probably think I'm this dark, twisted, miserable person."
- Naomi Watts
(Related: Movies, People, Comedy, Romantic, Talk)
"Above all, in comedy, and again and again since classical times, passages can be found in which the level of representation is interrupted by references to the spectators or to the fictive nature of the play."
- Paul Watzlawick
(Related: Nature, Comedy, Play)
"I think a lot comes from having the experience of doing stand-up comedy. It allows you to figure out the psychology of an audience; what things are funny and not."
- Keenen Ivory Wayans
(Related: Experience, Funny, Comedy, Psychology)
"I've been very fortunate to be able to jump around. I just did this really wonderful film called Map of the World. That was a real, amazing, dramatic story. Then I did a movie called Company Men, a little comedy about the Bay of Pigs."
- Sigourney Weaver
(Related: Men, Comedy, Company, Film, World)
"Fox came to us with the concept for ICE AGE and they came to us with the first draft of the script. They also gave us a mandate to make it into a comedy from what was previously a rather dramatic action concept."
- Chris Wedge
(Related: Age, Action, Comedy, Draft, First)
"I take my fun very seriously, whether it's playing the drums or acting in comedy bits. The need to be disciplined about it, and not take it lightly, and not be too casual, is something I take deeply to heart."
- Max Weinberg
(Related: Heart, Acting, Comedy, Fun)
"That title, is one of the things I fought for. A lot of people said "But it's stupid, and it's the title of a comedy movie, and people won't take it seriously," and I'm sure there are some people who still don't. But for the most part, people do see that we really have a quality show."
- Joss Whedon
(Related: Quality, People, Comedy)
"I want to see Bob Dylan do sketch comedy. I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan."
- Bradley Whitford
(Related: Comedy, Want)
"I had to choose, I'd be so sad. They are flip sides of the same coin. I love both comedy and drama."
- Dianne Wiest
(Related: Love, Comedy, Drama)
"I'd like to do a comedy with Emma Thompson. I admire her as an actress so much. I love her. And I didn't know it until recently that her whole career started in comedy."
- Gene Wilder
(Related: Love, Career, Comedy)
"Someone I've always admired is Catherine O'Hara... I think she's one of the best actresses in the country, not only comedy. I just think she's just a step aside from everybody, she's just wonderful."
- Fred Willard
(Related: Comedy, Country)
"I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time."
- Esther Williams
(Related: Time, Thought, Comedy, Feet, Running)
"People need to be peppered or even outraged occasionally. Our national comedy and drama is packed with earthy familiarity and honest vulgarity. Clean vulgarity can be very shocking and that, in my view, gives greater involvement."
- Kenneth Williams
(Related: People, Comedy, Drama, Familiarity, Vulgarity)
"Comedy is acting out optimism."
- Robin Williams
(Related: Optimism, Acting, Comedy)
"Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something."
- Luke Wilson
(Related: Funny, Goal, Comedy, Drama, Emotion, Trying)
"You can think of Hollywood as high school. TV actors are freshmen, comedy actors are maybe juniors, and dramatic actors - they're the cool seniors."
- Owen Wilson
(Related: Actors, Comedy, Hollywood, School)
"I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great part of what it is to be human."
- Rainn Wilson
(Related: Experience, Funny, Comedy, Moments, Television)
"I've an idea for doing a Situation Comedy myself but its always difficult to get people to listen to you because they like to put their own ideas forward."
- Norman Wisdom
(Related: People, Idea, Ideas, Comedy)
"It's fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama."
- Reese Witherspoon
(Related: People, Comedy, Drama, Fun)
"Drama or comedy programming is still the surest way for advertisers to reach a mass audience. Once that changes, all bets are off."
- Dick Wolf
(Related: Comedy, Drama, Programming)
"Dying is easy; comedy is hard."
- Donald Wolfit
(Related: Comedy, Dying)
"I am a big fan of the TV series Taxi which combined comedy and pathos better than any other show I've seen."
- Douglas Wood
(Related: Comedy)
"I like to see love stories: romantic comedy or romantic drama."
- Pia Zadora
(Related: Love, Comedy, Drama, Romantic)
"But in terms of satire and comedy, our biggest and earliest influence was Mad magazine."
- Jerry Zucker
(Related: Comedy, Influence, Satire)