Jeff Dunham Quotes

I love doing impressions and I love doing accents.

For me and accent work, I think once you've figured out where that energy is, where the sound is in your throat or your mouth, it's a whole lot easier to do.

To me the voice has always been the way to start any character. Once I find that, I'm good to go.

I've been doing silly voices since I was a child.

Your voice is your tool and represents you. It's very important to have a good voice where you can be understood.

I just didn't have time to deliver a Buffalo accent in a day, so I didn't even try it.

When we, as humans, articulate, our tongues tend to hit the back of the teeth.

I used to recite my speeches walking up a hill. It gives you wind power. I could throw fifty-six pound words across the Grand Canyon.

Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature.

I think the hardest thing about doing an accent, especially with a Missouri accent, is making sure that you're not mumbling with the words so your diction is clear.

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less. Unfortunately, there's a style of acting going round, especially with the younger actors, where they talk without even moving their lip. Maybe it's because my hearing probably isn't what it was 40 years ago but I'm sitting there going "What did they say"?

It was not the man's brain that was speaking; it was his larynx.

All I have is a voice.

For me, speaking is work. It's not like when you breathe.

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

I've always wanted to be a voice actor. Well I think at first I wanted to be a singer. Then in middle school I auditioned for a musical and I only really cared because I wanted to sing in it. I had to act as well as part of the audition and that was the first time I ever really acted, and I was like 'Oh hey, this is fun, I like doing this.'

As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians. (Earth (The Book), p. 36)

If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly. Do not compound mispronunciation with inaudibility

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

I'm so language-based and I'm so about communicating, and my art has always been very audience-based, and very about being functional and communicating something, and about feeling like I have to be heard.

It's spelled J-E-A-H. If you say it like how it's spelled it's ‘jee-ah.’ But, that's boring; no one wants to hear that. So you have to really put that emphatis [sic] on that ‘J.’ And then the ‘A-H’ kinda just flows.

Yet through delivery orators succeed, I feel that I am far behind indeed.

Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.

Nothing could bother me more than the way a thing goes dead once it has been said.

Where is the sound?" someone hastily scribbled on the blackboard, and they all waited anxiously for the reply. Milo caught his breath, picked up the chalk, and explained simply, "It's on the tip of my tongue.