V. S. Naipaul Quotes

There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.

Comedians, we're just people who whine. But we happen to be funny when we whine. Like, if Jerry Seinfeld wasn't funny, you'd want to punch him in the face; he'd just seem like a whiner to you. But the fact is that he's funny.

The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

Comedy becomes intensified in short scenes.

For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.

Comedy is such a personal thing. Everybody can cry at the same thing, but it's a lot harder to get everyone to laugh at the same thing.

Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.

Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.

Plus, I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.

I don't see any division between the comic and the tragic. I feel like I'm writing about serious things, and humour is one of my tools. It's not contrived, just part of my world, part of the way things are to me.

And if you can offer an explanation as to why it doesn't work then you've got to the whole root of comedy.

Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with.

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's 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.

Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of ueber-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, 'Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny.'

When you have a writing partner and you're writing a comedy, your goal is to make each other laugh.

Part of being a comedian is that it's your job to look at life and regurgitate it in a funny way, to point out its absurdities.

I love to do comedy, and I don't think of things as drama or comedy. I think that if it's a funny line, it's a funny line. If it's a funny moment, it's a funny moment.

I don't write punch lines.

The best comedy not only makes you laugh, but on the moment of the laugh, you learned.

The whole point of comedy, what's fun, is taking the stupid thought I had and working it into something that makes a bunch of people laugh.

Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.

Humour has to have a huge nugget of truth to be funny. You cannot laugh at something unbelievable. Whenever I say something on a lighter note, I am basically unwrapping the truth from a different perspective, and that makes it funny.

We have a need to make people laugh at things they'd never thought about, make them laugh at things that aren't logical.

Humor is the only way to tell a story. Especially the dark ones.