Comedic Persona Quotes

Becoming a comedienne was my way of adjusting to puberty.

I wasn't a class clown, I never developed this comedic flair as a kid. Even when I decided to become an actor, it was just to be an actor, not necessarily a comedic actor. I wasn't that guy who struck out with women so he became really funny, and that's when the women started to like him.

Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.

I like to think of myself as the middleman between Fred Allen and Henny Youngman.

I was born a comic.

I'm the Nickelodeon version of DangerMouse.

I know what I look like. I'm not a babe who's automatically going to be the leading-lady type. I think I would always be cast as the friend. I probably tend to look crap more often than I look good. I like messing around and pulling funny faces and doing funny walks.

I'm a personality - like a George Plimpton who effectively plays himself in a bunch of different roles, or a Paul Lynde-type character.

Comedians have a tendency to have a limited range, they tend to do one thing and do it very well, but it's limited.

I'm funny. I'm a comedian. I'm not a clown.

When I did comedy I made fun of myself. If there was a buffoon, I played the buffoon. And people looked at me and said, "Gee, that's like Uncle David", or "That's like a friend of mine.". And they related through that. I didn't make fun of them. I made fun of me.

As a kid, I thought of myself as a funny person who secretly wanted to be serious, but now I think maybe I'm a serious person who secretly wants to be funny.

If you're a comedian, it's a bit of a choice whether or not you want to be funny when you're not performing because it might feel disingenuous. In the same way, I don't show people magic tricks in social situations any more.

I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there.

NBC anchor Brian Williams is a standup comic in disguise.

As far as standup, everybody has a vehicle they are driving. If what you do works, it's like playing golf. If you can master that one swing over and over again, you will be successful. That's what standup is. You have to have a central move and it has to be yours. You have to own your comedy, own what you do.

With the stand-up comic on TV, whether it's Seinfeld or Cosby or Roseanne, more important than their knowledge of how to tell a joke is their knowledge of themselves, or the persona they've created as themselves. So that when you're in a room with writers, you can say, 'Guys, that's a funny line, but I wouldn't say it.'

I think comedy is difficult, and I'm amazed so many people want to do it. I'll be buying jeans and somebody will say, "I'm a comedian" - the guy selling you the jeans. The desire to be a comedian is weird. I found it weird myself to want to be one; I was a schoolboy when I wanted to be one but I didn't know how to do it. That was 50 years ago, so times have changed greatly. There seems to be a long line of people desperate to do it and most of them are quite good.

I've always been a clown trapped in a leading man's body.

[Being a good comedian] is a skill, but it's also a weird thing that only certain people can do. I always equate it to surgeons and how they can just cut people open and operate. Certain people are just wired differently, and I feel like comics are the same way.

It's funny: most people who recognize me on the subway and stuff - it's much more they think of me as a funny guy. I get much more of people telling me how much I make them laugh, actually. Which is nice.

I think comedians get too much credit or too much criticism for the style of comedy they do, and they generally do the style of comedy that works for them. [...] There's no kind of shrewd calculation going into the type of standup we all do. It's like David Cross is supposed to be doing the David Cross' type of standup.

I just do little jokes all the time and people think I'm serious. I know exactly who Gordon Ramsay is, I know exactly who Gordon Brown is... I just say jokes but they think I'm serious which I think is funny and I think I kind of play up the image sometimes because - whatever - it's just entertainment.

When did I become a fast-talking Jew? As time went on, my bits started to become longer, and that became part of the signature.

I'm closer to Bob Newhart than Rodney Dangerfield.