Comedy Influence Quotes

The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.

I always stayed away from political commentary. First of all, I didn't feel entitled. What I may feel about a candidate, I'm a comedian. I mean, if people like my comedy, that doesn't mean they should vote for the person I like. That's why I always kind of stayed away from endorsements.

There was just a lot of comedy on the TV in the house, and my parents are both very funny.

But in terms of satire and comedy, our biggest and earliest influence was Mad magazine.

Eugene Mirman is the Andy Warhol of comedy. People look to him for what's next in comedy, and he emails these people back promptly. The Will to Whatevs put me in a great mood because I was laughing out loud. Alone. That's hard to do.

Sarah Silverman. She's the reason I do comedy. Her DNC speech was my favorite thing I ever heard. Sitting down with her and laughing would be incredible.

My goal as a comedian is to sway people's opinion. It's not my only goal and it's not the only way I measure myself.

As far as characters are concerned, Alan Partridge makes me wet myself. I'm currently reading the book and have started talking like him as an unfortunate consequence.

I've paid attention to guys growin' up like Richard Pryor or Paul Mooney. The message that they were sending with what they did was so much bigger than them.

When 'Family Guy' came along, it was like a gift, and it expanded my fan base.

I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.

I can watch an episode of Jerry Seinfeld, and by the end, I'm just walking around my house, you know, talking like Jerry Seinfeld. 'What is that? What are you doing? Who is it? What's going' - you know, I just had that thing, when I grew up, I'd just start talking like people. You know, I always had that.

I wasn't one of those kids who stole Richard Pryor records. I wasn't a comedy-nerd kid. I had no concept of stand-up. Actually, the only inkling of stand-up I had was I read one of Paul Reiser's books when I was, like, 12. I found it at a yard sale, and I carried it around with me for six years.

I was inspired by comedy channels. I loved that they got to do sketches and could be funny and crude and make people laugh. But most of those channels, if not all of them, were done by guys.

Super Troopers is hilarious. Everybody always thought we somehow - we did Reno way, way before any of us had seen Super Troopers. It sat on the shelf for a couple years.

Well, I think Ant and Dec clearly liked me because 'Saturday Night Takeaway' is basically 'Noel's House Party.'

Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura… those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.

After my first novel, my mother said to me, 'Why don't you make your writing more funny? You're so funny in person.' Because my first novel was rather dark. And I don't know, but something about what she said was true. 'Yes, why don't I?' Maybe I was afraid to be funny in the writing. But since then, seven books later, almost everything I've done has a comedic edge to it.

I look up so much to those movies, 'Airplane!' and 'Naked Gun.' I think that stuff is so funny. I grew up just loving all that stuff and sort of idolizing Leslie Nielsen.

I can only write what makes me laugh, and what makes me laugh is the comedy I grew up on.

I was on the train from London to Paris, and all of a sudden it just popped into my head: I'm going to do the Don Loper fashion show from 'I Love Lucy.'

When I was a little kid I loved the Marx brothers and discovered Monty Python when I was 10 or 11-years-old. I used to take a tape recorder and hold it up in front of the TV to record entire episodes to play over and over again, so that I could memorise it.

I transplanted my brain into 'HQ' and that's where the dark corners of my mind got exposed: Pop culture, '90s baseball, 'Simpsons,' 'Seinfeld,' 'Mr. Show,' Phish, Grateful Dead.

HBO was a big thing for stand-up, and when you're a broke kid with absolutely nothing to do on the weekend, there was always video recording your HBO specials. I would just rewind those specials and watch them like they were new again.

As a kid, I loved Paula Poundstone and Richard Pryor. But my mother was a huge influence on my comedy.