Comedian's Perspective Quotes

When you think about a festival from a comedian's perspective, it has to do with who else does it - that's number one. The second consideration - and this is kind of crazy - is: 'What's the food like? What is the town like? Is it walkable? Is it easy to get around?'

I love doing great entertainment, but I like the joke to be on me. I don't want to take advantage of some poor person and dog 'em out and let the chips fall.

I know I'm fly - don't get me wrong. But I don't look, like, standard Hollywood. As a comedian, it's something you learn to use.

I get messages from 21-year old white dudes who have just gotten out of an expensive college and say 'Hey can I pick your brain?' and I have nothing to say to them because A. They already have all the advantages and B. My advice would be the same as anyone else: Go do open mics.

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.

Where my comedy really solidified was when Bush was elected. I couldn't understand how craven and crass he was, and how dumb other people were for electing him.

Being a stand-up comic, this isn't a stepping-stone for me; it's what I do, and this is what I'm always going to do. And even if I do a TV show, the only reasons to do a TV show is to get more people to know me to come out to my stand-up shows.

A white lady came running up to me after a show. She goes, What gives you the right to do jokes about black people like that. And I'm like, Listen lady, my best friend is Cuban. And that's close enough.

I went to England to tell jokes, and I wanted to tell my Smokey the Bear joke, but I had to ask the English people if they knew who Smokey the Bear is. But they don't. In England, Smokey the Bear is not the forest-fire-prevention representative. They have Smackie the Frog. It's a lot like a bear, but it's a frog. And that's a better system, I think we should adopt it. Because bears can be mean, but frogs are always cool. Never has there been a frog hopping toward me and I thought, "Man, I better play dead!"

Comedians kind of write what comes to them. You can give yourself little assignments, but it's what inspires you.

I'll take anyone I can get that will pay money to see me. And if there's more of me in the world, people who think they're good people and comedians who have a good message or whatever, then that's great. If there's some kind of balance there that's good.

There's a lot of hypocrisy in audiences. I'd never dream of telling even on a nightclub stage, let alone my show, some of the jokes that are told in a lot of the living rooms from which we get those letters!

No, I had not read any other comedian's book. Not that I don't enjoy other comedians; I'm just not a reader.

Comics write to their point of view. If you're an exceedingly irreverent comedian, you've got to see where that point of view fits or produces the most funny.

As I see it, there's mainstream comedy - and then there's me, out in the badlands.

There is no way I would ever want to be president for a second. It's much easier to make fun of them on the stage and get paid for it. With all the years of me lampooning the presidents in my act, I know I could never ever want that job.

I learned pretty early is I never defend my material; it's for other people to if someone is offended. It's so subjective, and if you don't find it funny, it's definitely going to be offensive.

Well, it's not hard to be number one entertaining Jew. Some of them are quite bleeding bloody miserable, really.

As a comedian, I'm like one of those on-the-scene reporters. I will actually go and try to find disasters so I can write jokes as the disasters unfold.

I really get a little bit confused by all this "angry angry angry" talk when all I do is tell jokes and at least some people find it funny.

If you wanted to hear politics, you'd go to Henry Kissinger; you wouldn't go to hear Jackie Mason. The reason I speak about politics is because I know I can get a laugh out of it.

My thinking is, if we're setting out to make comedy in which nothing is off limits, then everybody is fair game.

People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, 'I don't have that button.'

I'm glad I'm a comedian. Otherwise, my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.

I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life.