Whit Stillman Quotes

I think most people that do comedy write for themselves. I don't think there is any other way you can do it, really. Otherwise it would be quite cynical.

I've been blessed to have done different roles, but I don't think people see me as funny.

I think comedy is the hardest actual form of writing there is.

I think I'm the funniest guy in a room full of unfunny people. Unfortunately, my career is increasingly leading me into rooms where everybody is funny. I'm the least funny person in a room full of funny people.

I think I'm the funniest guy in a room full of unfunny people.

Not a time with him passed that I didn't say, "You should've been a comedian." [Vincent Price] was hilarious. He was just such a quick, funny wit. I don't think most people would think that about him, and it was really surprising to me. But man, the guy had a brilliant wit.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

With humor, it's so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.

My girlfriend doesn't think I'm funny at all.

Just because you're laughing, it doesn't mean the audience will, necessarily.

At first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me, your emotions follow your intent. If you create the intention of starting a comedy act, slowly your mind starts adjusting and you arrive at a new emotional state.

What I didn't realize is that the writing process for comedies is that you do your table read, and if you aren't funny on that first day during the table read, they take your jokes away and give them to somebody else.

I have a very high respect for professional comedians. What they do astonishes me. You have to be really smart and absorb everything, repackage it, bring it back to the person, and make them laugh at themselves. I can make people laugh during my talks because they didn't come to have me make them laugh. It's added value. So my job is way easier than that of a professional comic.

The victory of the show is in the writing. Coming up with sketches and stand-up bits. The rest is just hitting buttons on a machine more or less.

Sometimes they laugh at things I don't think are funny, but I believe if they're laughing at me, it's a good show.

I think most of the actors that I know that I think are good are kind of funny people. There's just something about being alive to the truth of a moment that makes a good joke that also makes a good actor.

I always hate telling my jokes in print 'cause I always feel like it reads so not funny and people read it and they think, 'Oh, so that's what that guy does in his stand-up? That's terrible.'

When I say something funny, I don’t laugh, so my friends are always like, ‘Hahahahaaaa!’ so people know. When I’m not with them, I always think, This person doesn’t know I’m funny; they just think I’m a jerk.

If ideas are what feed serious literature and arresting language, who today is writing a novel of ideas (which can often mean comedy)? I think of Joshua Cohen. Who else?

I think it's that much harder to make a good comedy than it is straight and apparently serious.

Comedy is very important, yes. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider.

My stories take three or four months to fix, and it's not magical of a process. Ultimately it's a boring, difficult process. I write everything out, and then the parts I think are funny I put in bold. Then I go perform it. Then the parts that aren't funny, I unbold them.

I really never thought people would think that I was funny, I thought (my friends) thought I was funny because I was their friend, but other people would just think I was an asshole. I was at least partly right.

Me, as myself, I don't think I'm particularly funny. But I've noticed that people in my life always have found me amusing. Which, when I was little, really bothered me.

Jokes that make me laugh out loud when I write them almost always bomb. I have no idea why.