The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.
You can't study comedy; it's within you. It's a personality. My humor is an attitude.
The secret of comedy is don't grow up. That's why some comedians are a nightmare, because they never grow up.
And killing time is perhaps the essence of comedy, just as the essence of tragedy is killing eternity.
I guess the essence of my comedy is to get into a very abnormal situation but act like it's normal.
When something is truly funny, it's funny all the time.
A friend once asked me what comedy was. That floored me. What is comedy? I don't know. Does anybody? Can you define it? All I know is that I learned how to get laughs, and that's all I know about it. You have to learn what people will laugh at, then proceed accordingly.
The true essence of comedy is a baby seal hunt.
Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.
For me, a great joke is an idea expressed in extremely concentrated form.
There's a sort of magic and music to comedy. Some words, some numbers even, are funnier than others. A Caramac bar, for instance, is funnier than a Milky Way.
I don't have to change anything. I think that's the secret to comedy. You want to be universal and appeal to everyone.
When you start explaining why something's funny or finding a formula for it I think it loses some of its funniness.
A lot of stand-up specials for cable are meant to glorify the comedian. They put you in a really beautiful theater, and sometimes they even blow a little smoke in there to make it misty and sweet. They make the guy look like he's a big rock star. But comedy's not really glamorous. It doesn't enhance comedy for it to look good.
