Best 648 quotes in «comedian quotes» category

What I like about stand-up is, it's truthful. I'm not up there trying to get laid or look cool. I'm up there because I really love it, and it makes people happier.

What I love about comedians is their instinct is always to go against the grain. Their whole existence is pointing out the elephant in the room. Already you can see audiences are pushing back, but we're the ones who really can take it more than anybody.

What I say is stupid. Who takes a comedian seriously? I'm doing sophisticated knock-knock jokes.

What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.

What really got my goat at MGM were comedians like The Marx Brothers who never wrote their own jokes.

What's the good thing about being an actor, you can do more things. Not just being a comedian, not going overboard but expressing myself within the confines of a film.

What you have to do as a comedian, that I suppose is quite difficult, is you have to end it. All the stuff that I've ever done in the past - all the tours - no matter how good it was last year or the year before, that's gone. What exists this year only exists in this time, and then it will be gone.

When a soldier of the night's watch dies they say, "And now his watch is over." That's what they say when a comedian dies. They go, "And now his tour is done.

When comedians get successful, the fans that they have aren't the fans they would hang out with. I don't have that problem.

Whenever you correct someone's grammar just remember that nobody likes you.

When I approach villains, unless it's a drama, I'm a comedian, so I approach most things from a comedic point of view.

When I did Comic Relief, I did it to be on the show; it's a badge of honor as a comedian to do that show.

When it comes to English stand-up comedy, Indians have only seen the best - Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and the like. So, when someone claims to be an English stand-up comedian in India, he'd better be very good if he's going to make a life of it.

When I see a good singer, I get teary-eyed. Part of it is jealousy because all comedians are frustrated rock stars. That's a fact.

When I used to watch comedians with my dad, he laid it all out for me. He wanted to be a comedian himself, and he was so funny. We'd watch stand-up on TV, and he'd tell me the subtext of what they were saying.

When I told my friends I was going to be a comedian, they laughed at me.

When somebody mangles one of my jokes, that bothers me more than somebody saying that I'm the worst comedian ever.

When I was younger I always thought, 'If I were ever a comedian I'd make it like a rock concert.' I wanted to generate that type of enthusiasm and excitement.

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.

When I was seven, I said, "I want to act." When I was 10, I realized that films exist, and I wanted to be in them. Not a comedian, I wanted to be a dramatic actor. Films just seemed such fun, and like such a great thing to do.

When I was ten, I wrote an essay on what I would be when I grew up and said I would be a professional soccer player and a comedian in off season.

When you hear "Seinfield," no one says, "the Jewish comic." You talk about Cedric the Entertainer, you don't say, "African American comedian Cedric the Entertainer." Even Margaret Cho - who's like one of three Korean performers out there - no one refers to her like that. They say, "It's Margaret Cho.

When they put me in jail, that's when they turned me into an activist. Up until the time I went to jail, I was just a comedian.

When you do late-night TV, you do different jokes in the same place every night. When you're on the road as a comedian, you do the same jokes in a different place every night.

When you go to standup, there seems to be a common denominator of some form of need or want for validation from the audience that maybe you were lacking as a kid.

When you hang around a lot of comedians long enough, you realize there's a certain gene, in every comedian. It's why we get hyper-analytical about things.

When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.

When you're a comedian, the Holy Grail is an hour long HBO special.

When you're 17 years old, you have no idea who you are as a person, so there's no way you can be a good performer. You can't be a good comedian, because you don't know who you are, you don't know what you're saying. Stand-up is nothing but an expression of self-awareness. It wasn't until I was 23, 24 that I got to have a handle on a perspective on life, where I became decent. And I was just a terribly socially awkward younger person.

When you start in the childhood period, when you begin to form a comic sense, it was the radio comedians - from the last days of radio and the first days of television. And Spike Jones. And the Marx Brothers. They represented anarchy. They took things that were nice and decent and proper, and they tore them to shreds. That attracted me.

Whoever calls and asks me to do stuff and obviously, with having your own TV show, people want you to get involved. They know you're a stand-up comedian so they're always looking for somebody funny to host an event.

While painting I noticed a piece of madras cloth on the floor. As usual, my mind started working overtime and a pair of scissors and a small amount of glue later...I created THE COMEDIAN. Everybody loved the uniqueness of the painting. It was indeed a hit.

Who's famous anymore? No one. There are these comedians that are famous in a weird way. There are comedians, like Anjelah Johnson and Russell Peters, [who] are unbelievably famous, but in a way they're selling out 1,000-person stadiums.

Will Rogers used to say he wouldn't run for president no matter how badly the country needed a comedian.

Why should we tell kidnappers, murderers, and embezzlers their rights? If they don't know their rights, they shouldn't be in the business.

With a comedian, it's the opposite. You put that album out, and they've heard it. If they're coming out to see you, you'd better be doing new stuff. There's always a tiny part of the audience that want to hear certain bits of yours, or they've brought friends to see you, and they've told them about some of your bits. Then maybe you should do them.

You can't do anything to be funny. That's cringeworthy. If your humor comes out of a place of love every time, you don't make the joke bigger than you. The funniest comedians are in touch with their emotional level.

With a lot of comedians, one of their major attributes is that they look comedic, with a certain hangdog or manic expression. I look like the neighborhood bully. That doesn't elicit laughter.

You are always a comedian by default. You are this way because you've been forced to be this way, but it is better to be the hero. So if you can be a persona, the great one of my lifetime of course was and is Marlon Brando.

You can't hold me to the same standard as the president or a school teacher. I'm just a comedian. My job is like Archie Bunker.

You don't look down at your feet. A lot of comedians want to look down at their feet, but you break contact with the audience.

You don't have to be inspired by comedians. You have to be inspired by things that are real, whether it's music, comedy...a movie - that should inspire you.

You do what you're supposed to do, but you have to be honest about what they're doing. When you do a comedy show on a network the problem is there are going to be a bunch of people who aren't comedians that are going to tell you what's funny.

You know, I'm a comedian the same as Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. We all came up the same way. The three of us have interest in politics; I call us fundits, we're fundits! We're not pundits!

You have to go away to come back. That's just normal. That's with bands, actors, comedians, everything.

You have to realize, when you're a comedian, that you have to have a thick skin. And trust me, being onstage in front of people is already difficult enough. Somebody's personal attack in an email is not as hard as getting onstage.

You just got to be really logical when you're a comedian - to a fault. Like a lawyer's got to believe in the law.

You know, in Los Angeles, you're constantly in your car, you're sealed up, you're not walking around. Whereas in New York, after a while, all your stuff is kind of public, in one way or the other. I'm not saying either one of those is bad; they're both great for a very specific kind of comedian. And I'm glad that they both exist.

You must not be afraid of small bits of silence. To use it well is the height of confidence and skill for a comedian. It increases the tension in a good way and adds contrast like a curveball complements the fastball of a good pitcher.

You learn to laugh at yourself and you also lean on comedy as a crutch to kind of take the edge off because comedians often are self-deprecating and they cross lines that they shouldn't. Stuff like that brings a smile to my face every once in a while when needed.