Tommy Chong Quotes

It was liberating to do comedy. It felt like playing in a jazz band.

The only way I was going to be funny was if I was myself, and either you liked it, or you didn't. Either you got on my train, or you didn't. Freeing myself of this idea that I had to fit a certain mold was when I was able to be my funniest.

In comedy you are allowed to be weird - and even applauded for it.

You shouldn't think about technique when you play. You have to be you. It cannot be about, 'I can play this, and I can show you that.'

The most daring thing is to be yourself and to do exactly what you want to do at that point in time and not to be worried with what other people are doing or what's popular.

If you think something's funny, go with that. Most comedians pull jokes from a place of honesty.

I think if you're trying to be funny, sometimes you're bending a piece of metal in a direction it doesn't want to go. And sometimes comedy just needs to find itself.

Comedy is surprise. Comedy is not something that you can, necessarily, do twice.

I love goofing off and being awkward. I have always enjoyed improv.

I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.

If you're contriving something, if you're making something up, it's not funny. You can tell. It's instant. It has to come from someplace real.

There is spontaneity to my work.

If there is one thing that makes me unique, it's that I riff a lot.

The one good thing about dance is that if you are truly yourself, then it's all good.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth - you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don't have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don't have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It's you.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

You can't make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I don't mind being unlikely. I'd rather that than be predictable.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Comedy is not something that a person can fake or learn how to do.

I never wanted to make a graphic novel. As soon as you become a 'writer,' you have to be intelligent all the time... I like the fact that I have the right once in a while to say silly things.