Madeline Kahn Quotes

No subject is unsuitable for comedy.

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

I'm like a sight gag.

In terms of pure comedic value, 'Tootsie' is brilliant.

Madness isn't altogether a bad thing in comedy.

What makes me laugh is, of course, the absurd, the horror - anything that upsets me.

Comedy isn't just timing; it's about rooting out the funny in the real. You just bend reality to the left a little.

I am not a farceur. I am not Blake Edwards.

Hollywood comedy has gotten really silly and absurd, and I like that.

I love comedy that seems kind of a little bit absurd.

In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama.

I think that a big part of comedy is being made fun of, and it is looking silly or looking stupid.

I think comedy, so much of it comes out of the strange sort of golden instant 'cause you don't know why it's funny, but you captured it.

What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

People... need a time to laugh. It's up to us to bonk ourselves on the head and slip on a banana peel so the average guy can say, 'I may be bad, honey, but I'm not as much of an idiot as that guy on the screen.'

It's a great counter to doing the soap because it's a comedy. It's real physical comedy.

I think a lot of humor is about distracting yourself. Pretend you're not trying to make it funny. Because for some reason the effort to be funny smells like sulphur in our culture.

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.

When I write, I create really absurd situations which become false because I am after the joke.

I like really stupid comedies.

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration.

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way.

If you record the world honestly, there's no way people can stop being funny. A lot of fiction writing doesn't get that idea, as if to acknowledge it would trivialize the story or trivialize human nature, when in fact human nature is reduced and falsified if the comic aspects are not included.

When you don't have a laugh track, you can make the clothes funny. We can make a sign funny. We can make the way somebody walks funny. The makeup can be funny.

Comedy is drama. I think that if your characters are feeling something that is very real, then they have to respond in a way that feels real to them, and some situations, the only response you could possibly have is to respond in a way that's so extreme that people are going to laugh.