Art Buchwald Quotes

My biggest pet peeve, I guess, is other comedians criticizing Larry the Cable Guy.

I considered myself a professional comedian because the club would pay me $20.

I used humor to avoid being picked on as a kid. Or I would try and make my parents laugh, so I wouldn't get in trouble. But as a kid, I would watch Flip Wilson and I would memorize his whole routine, listen to Bill Cosby's records constantly, Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball. I just drank that stuff up and loved it.

To me, if you are in the same building with Peter Sellers or John Cleese, or any of those guys and holding your own making other people laugh, that's a compliment.

It was always the most fun thing in the world to think of a joke area and talk about it with someone like Jim Carrey, and then he would get on stage fearlessly and tear the house down. That's something I always enjoyed. It also allowed me to not be terrified.

I've always liked and appreciated storytellers like Garry Shandling and Bill Cosby - more long-form comedy. So starting in San Francisco, watching all these great comics - Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle - you get to see them a bunch, and you go, 'Wow, this is where I need to be.'

Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics.

I have seen and heard comedians who had really funny 'stuff' but yet could not make the people laugh; then, again - I have seen others whose stuff was anything but humorous, and the audience would howl with laughter.

As far as guys who perform onstage, I love Chris Rock. I'm kind of jaded on everyone else.

During the Great Depression, when people laughed their worries disappeared. Audiences loved these funny men. I decided to become one.

There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.

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.

Making people laugh is magic. I feel like if you have humility, then you can do anything in comedy.

I've been doing comedy since I was two. You know, kids who make other kids laugh. The sickness had set in! I could make my friends' parents laugh; I had a sense of what was silly and funny.

I support the homies, like Mike Jay and Hannibal Buress. And I listen to Comedy Central Radio in the car.

Growing up, the one thing I noticed was that everyone seemed to laugh at my jokes wherever I went.

Chris Rock, I think is pretty brilliant, and Amy Schumer's fabulous.

I go to a lot of comedy shows.

As comedians, we have the opportunity to convey a message that will have an effect. The best can make you laugh and cry, the way musicians and actors can.

Comedy shows in D.C. are so much fun. I think because of the intense area that is connected to politics that people need, they need their down time. D.C. audiences are almost universally praised by comedians.

Funny is funny. You can be fooled by the eye, but if your performance is funny to the ear, it will be funny. I think it's that if you don't have the visual, you have to infuse the full personality into the voice.

Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.

[Adoption] could turn you into an exquisite comedian. Ask Richard Pryor's ghost.

The next best thing to a very good joke is a very bad one.

I like to make people laugh. I like that kind of silly stuff. For me, it's a natural thing to want to do something like this.