I know what people like, and fortunately they seem to share my sense of humor.
Comedy is the difference between how you see a person and how they see themselves.
I think that's something that people don't realize enough about when they get into comedy - it's not just about sitting back and observing and saying something funny.
I don't think you get a lot of comedians who are homeopaths. Comedy is essentially about not being hoodwinked.
Golf was my first glimpse of comedy. I was a caddy when I was a kid. I was on the golf course rather than being in lessons, but I can play better now than I could then.
No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it's probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are.
A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.
Could I see him acting as Warren Beatty directed, and what would that be like? When you see him as those characters, once you get to know him, there is so much of him in them. In fact, I saw so much of him in them that it made me laugh.
I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.
Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.
Good comedians are great philosophers.
I love dipping into worlds at a fast and furious pace. A little glimpse allows the audience to put together the rest of that world in their brain. I love sketches that require the audience to piece together the comedic engine themselves. Give them all the information but not tell them what the scene is about so they can have that eureka moment of, "Oh my God, he's only used to the way urban students pronounce their names. That's what's going on here.".
Great Canadian comics are often outsiders and insiders at the same time. That's a great perspective for a comedian.
I realized two things from an early age - I was insane and had some kind of comedic thing going on. My brain was wired to think about things in terms of how funny they were.
I actually think of being funny as an odd turn of mind, like a mild disability, some weird way of looking at the world that you can't get rid of.
The real heart of comedy is uncovering a truth about yourself or about the world that you didn't see.
I feel like there is something about having a copacetic world POV that helps in making a comedy. Like, David Wain has such a particular way of looking at the world. It helps when everyone can see behind his eyes, you know?
Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.
In 20 years of comedy, I've probably had a dozen good points.
At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.
There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.
Recently, I went up to Casino Rama to see Martin Short's show, just to see how he put it all together. And after the show, I went backstage and picked his brain to find out why he did certain things.
My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly.
I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?
Being comedian outside of performing, you're someone who's analyzing life, and thinking about it, and observing so much. In my opinion, it can make you feel sort of on the outside looking in.
