Madeline Kahn Quotes

#1. Me, as myself, I don't think I'm particularly funny. But I've noticed that people in my life always have found me amusing. Which, when I was little, really bothered me.

Madeline Kahn

#2. I find being funny very hard work. I am always asked about it, and I feel guilty saying that, but it's the truth. I love my work, but it ain't easy.

Madeline Kahn

#3. Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage!

Madeline Kahn

#4. From inside where I live, I feel like I just perceive events in a certain rational way. I often find it sad or poignant, and it may not make me laugh a bit. But I don't mind inventing a portrait that allows others to laugh if that's what they want to do.

Madeline Kahn

#5. Comedy is an ability to observe and see what's funny in a situation and be able to forget yourself enough to do it.

Madeline Kahn

#6. I don't like to be my own audience, I find that being my own audience, being in the audience, makes me self-conscious, basically. So I tune in sometimes, with the sound off, to check it out and I back up to it. In the future I will look at it when some time has passed.

Madeline Kahn

#7. If a scene isn't well written they'll drop your neckline to fill the void.

Madeline Kahn

#8. Fun is carefree. I am not carefree.

Madeline Kahn

#9. Ah, but the servant waits, while the master baits.

Madeline Kahn

#10. In Hollywood I thought I was large and klutzy, like the characters I played.

Madeline Kahn

#11. Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex.

Madeline Kahn

#12. What's wrong with musicals now is all the gifted men who've died of AIDS-who would otherwise be here today creating great theater.

Madeline Kahn

#13. Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.

Madeline Kahn

#14. Tell me, schatze, is it twue what they say about the way you people are... gifted?
...Oh, it's twue! It's twue!

Madeline Kahn

#15. My mother was a Bohemian - in the good sense of the word. A searcher. And she investigated various religions.

Madeline Kahn