Comedian Inspiration Quotes

Dave Chappelle is one of my comedic inspirations. His perspective is crazy, and he's super sharp.

When I used to watch comedians with my dad, he laid it all out for me. He wanted to be a comedian himself, and he was so funny. We'd watch stand-up on TV, and he'd tell me the subtext of what they were saying.

Albert Brooks is definitely one of my biggest influences, for sure.

I want people to watch us and think, 'They're idiots. They're clowns,' I want them to watch us and think Tommy Cooper or Spike Milligan.

I really enjoyed doing stand-up. Andy Kaufman was a big hero of mine. I tried to do conceptual stuff like he tried to do.

Although I had good hand-eye coordination, I was so tall and skinny and muscularly weak that I just was not well coordinated. But what I started to do quite early on was watch some of the great old silent comedians, like Laurel and Hardy and Chaplin, and then later on Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

Bill Cosby was the first comedian I was exposed to, because he doesn't curse.

I wasn't funny as a kid. I remember enjoying comedians, but I never understood it was a job choice or a profession.

I definitely have a little Woody Allen inside of me. That is true.

I never had the confidence to say I was going to be in front of the camera as a comedian until I saw Eddie Murphy years later.

My heroes - people like Woody Allen - were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.

What I love is getting a new joke, or a premise like a sketch idea or a movie idea. That's the best feeling for a comedian.

Lily Tomlin...I used to watch reruns of Laugh-In and she was always my favorite part. She's this very unique talent and the way she does things has been a very big influence on me.