Wanda Sykes Quotes

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

Melissa and I both say we don't write very good jokes.

Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.

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.

... an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.

First, there must be talent. . .Then there must be discipline. . .Then there must be. . .and absolute conscience. . .to prevent faking.

It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.

Where do you come up with these zingers, Clint? Do you own some kind of joke factory in Indonesia where you've got eight-year-olds working ninety hours a week to deliver you that kind of top-quality witticism? There are boy bands with more original material.

I don't consciously try to make things difficult as much as I try to make them a little different. I like all kinds of laughs. I tried to make a show that elicit groans, guffaws, chuckles, boos.

First come the innovators, then come the imitators, then come the idiots.

In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.

There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.

Be the first to see what you see as you see it.

It's great to be paid, but it's better to do something original that's going to be memorable.

Originality implies a return to the origins, original is returning to the simplicity of the first solutions.

I must admit I am nervous about getting Alzheimer's. Once it hits, I might tell my best joke and never know it.

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.

The key is that I'm always relevant. Some of these comedians have nothing to say. They don't have any ideas so it's "F" this and "F" that. They give you a whole series of swear words and it's really just a way for them to get themselves out of trouble when they can't come up with anything. They're irrelevant and ridiculous.

A lot of comedy is really DIY. You're kind of doing it yourself.

Be the first to not do what nobody has ever thought of not doing before.

Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct; but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

Although knowledge of structure is helpful, real creativity comes from leaps of faith in which you jump to something illogical. But those leaps form the memorable moments in movies and plays.

A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.

I like the inspiration of the first take.