Top 100 Comedy Is Quotes
#1. I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.
Sharon Horgan
#2. I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'
Bob Newhart
#4. I think comedy is a good way to deal with anything. I hear about people in the hospital who are ill, and they use humor to help them through it. I think it's a great remedy for many things.
Brian Regan
#5. A romantic comedy has to be funny and make you think about life; but the obstacle that has to be overcome is key.
Jennifer Lopez
#6. 'Natural Born Killers' is really a misunderstood romantic comedy.
Woody Harrelson
#8. Comedy is a man in trouble. And without it, there's no humor.
Jerry Lewis
#9. The problem is that I work in more than one genre. It's impossible for me to aim for a single one because, for me, comedy is mixed with tragedy. That's very Spanish, the way in which comedy and tragedy are inextricable from each other.
Pedro Almodovar
#10. If I had a choice, I would do comedy all the time. It's just the most challenging thing. To make someone laugh is the most challenging thing, and the most rewarding thing, in entertainment.
Bruce Willis
#11. I believe comedy should be free to go anywhere. I believe that there is tasteful and untasteful, I think they're very close to each other, and it's how you handle it tonally. But I'm an equal opportunity offender.
David Dobkin
#12. I guess what I always found funny was the human condition. There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like, when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit.
John Prine
#13. I say, you look smashing this evening," Zayne strode over to her, took her arm, and began helping her up the walk, "That is a lovely gown, and what is the color of the hair you're currently sporting?
Jen Turano
#14. Comedy is so hard to do, so it was very cool to do dead pan humor.
Brittany Daniel
#15. Life involves effort and growth. You won't grow by watching a situation comedy, though you can grow by reading a book. I hope we aren't becoming a nation of watchers, because what made us great is that we've always been a nation of doers.
Ronald Reagan
#16. There is no late-night comedy. You watch comedy, you watch whenever you want to tune on. You can it in the middle of the night. You can it in the morning. It's all comedy. They just label it late-night comedy so they don't have to pay as much.
George Schlatter
#17. My dream is not Hollywood, but to perform my act in English to 30 people in a Soho comedy club, to show New Yorkers what they look like from the French point of view.
Gad Elmaleh
#18. Also, my humor is really dry-witted, Canadian humor, so some people get it and some people don't. I'd be great on "The Office." I would like to be on that show. And, I could see me doing romantic comedy films, and stuff like that.
Tinsel Korey
#19. Comedy is a necessity to get through life with the fewest scars. Humor is the best antidote to help relieve all struggles.
Suzy Kassem
#21. Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.
Denis Leary
#22. The best way to ruin a comedy is to throw a lot of money at it.
Jay Leno
#24. Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.
Tommy Chong
#25. Comedy is ugly. It's honest, it's raw.
Aisha Tyler
#26. Too much comedy is filthy these days. There's nothing they won't say. I like Jimmy Carr, but I don't like the language he uses. I don't understand why he feels it necessary; I find it extremely offensive.
Bobby Davro
#27. New York State is giant and has some of the most beautiful landscape on the Eastern seaboard. There is so much history in New York State, from the Erie Canal to the Catskills, the birth of American stand-up comedy.
Adam Savage
#28. Mankind is immortal
in the comic perspective not by virtue of man's subjugation of nature
but by virtue of man's subjection to it. The "fall" in tragedy ends in
death; the fall in comedy ends in bed, where, by natures's arithmetic,
one and one make a brand new one.
Rose A. Zimbardo
#30. The verdict of this court is that the accused are guilty of witchcraft. The maximum penalty the law allows is to be burned to death.However, in view of your previous good background I am disposed to be lenient. I therefore sentence you to be burned alive.
Richard Curtis
#31. A solid base for any comedy is just honesty and truth, and it coming from a real place. As surreal as this show gets and is, ultimately, we're dealing with a character that most can't see the way that I can see it.
Elijah Wood
#32. I said, "Is there!" I told him there is a Mafia school where they teach them math - if Johnny has ten fingers and they cut off two, how many does he have left?
Joan Rivers
#33. Storytelling is a landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you're seeing.
Lauren Groff
#34. America's biggest failure is its inability to take comedy seriously.
H.L. Mencken
#35. I've played such serious characters that no one sees me the way I actually am, which is completely cheesy and goofy, so it would be fun to do a romantic comedy and just have a good laugh.
Laura Vandervoort
#36. The story is uneven in its progression.
Ichtys
#37. For me, 'Arrested Development' is the cornerstone of recent television comedy. It's so incredibly flawless and perfect.
John Krasinski
#38. I enjoy doing these silly little videos, and a lot of stuff online is stuff I actually created for my live comedy shows.
Tom Lenk
#39. What I'd really like to write is a romantic comedy. This is my favorite kind of movie. I feel almost embarrassed revealing this, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity.
Mindy Kaling
#40. The more you progress, the more you learn. I try to pay attention to ticket counts, draws, guarantees and bonuses. I look at my deals closely these days and try to come up with other projects and ideas, since this business [comedy] is about creating content.
Hannibal Buress
#41. How to do half-hour comedy innovatively is something I do pride myself on. We invented it with 'I Love Lucy.'
Lucille Ball
#42. Horror films are very functional like comedies. The main thing with a comedy, the big question is "is it funny?" And with horror the question is "is it scary?"
Leigh Whannell
#43. I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are really the same for doing drama, in that it's essentially about listening. The way I approach comedy, is you have to commit to everything as if it's a dramatic role, meaning you play it straight.
Will Ferrell
#44. I watch drama. I don't watch a lot of comedy. Watching comedy is like work.
Marta Kauffman
#45. There is almost no marital problem that can't be helped enormously by taking off your clothes.
Garrison Keillor
#46. I do find things funny. When you see life through the eyes of someone with a good sense of humor, which my grandmother did, life is a human comedy.
George Takei
#48. I think, you know, a lot of the business of comedy is taking your personal experiences and making them relatable to other people.
Kumail Nanjiani
#49. For me to make a living acting silly for as long as I can get away with it, I think the most viable way to make that happen is to evolve into more traditional comedy. I've really been putting in the work.
Steve-O
#50. For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.
Bo Burnham
#51. Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith.
Christopher Fry
#52. I find that working with friends is always the goal, even if it's just one person. Because the comedy community is kind of insular, it's easy to run into people you've worked with, even if you worked with someone on something for a day, or whatever.
Lizzy Caplan
#53. Most of my comedy is accidental, I would say. If I don't know what the joke is, I'm going to play it better than if I do.
Aya Cash
#54. Movies are designed to tell us stories, engage us on an emotional level and keep our attention. This can be done with a wide range of emotional triggers - Love, adrenaline, comedy. But fear is a highly potent sensation.
David Hayter
#55. I think the kick to doing comedy is just to get in a film with really funny people and let them do their jobs. I find that in most comedies, I'm not the funny one, which works out great.
Amy Adams
#56. 'Jackass: The Movie' is great. I think it's in the tradition of physical comedy, which I'm really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body.
Matthew Barney
#57. I don't do sketch anymore and sometimes I miss it. But I think what I really miss is that time in my life, it was kind of like college. No kids, no real responsibilities, just comedy, food and late nights.
Alex Borstein
#58. I'll probably stick to comedy for the time being. I mean, a great piece of work is a great piece of work, and I'm up for good work anytime. But I do love comedy!
Jenna Elfman
#59. The person I have admired the most in comedy terms would be Eric Morecambe, who is my total hero.
Dawn French
#60. This is why improvisational music and comedy is so inspiring: You are seeing something being born, and that energy, there is no substitute for. These songs, most of them, are about a minute old when you hear them.
John Darnielle
#61. Is not the decisive difference between comedy and tragedy that tragedy denies us another chance?
John Updike
#62. Comedy doesn't really matter that much; I know that. I treat it like an adult - I don't treat it like a child or a god, which some people do. This might just be in America, but 'stand-up comedy' is something very particular that I don't particularly relate to.
Bo Burnham
#63. With comedy, it's really hard to tell if something's working on the page - you really need the actors to bring it alive. The scariest part is if people will laugh or not.
Maggie Carey
#64. To spoon-feed people their comedy is not the proper evolution of the art.
Michael Mosley
#65. I think the Dutch certainly get British comedy. And let's face it; a lot of it is pretty low-hanging fruit for the whole world now. There are probably tribes in the heart of the Papua New Guinean rainforest that know all the words to the Dead Parrot sketch.
Rhianna Pratchett
#66. Female hysteria is a subject I'm very fond of. I always try to bring it in somewhere. For me, it is the finest part of the line between comedy and tragedy.
Rachel Cusk
#67. When I was starting out, I always wanted to be able to do everything - comedy and drama and action, and everything in between. Film is so diverse, and it's fun to be able to take advantage of all of it.
Olivia Thirlby
#68. Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
Steve Martin
#69. When you're doing comedy, it is so subjective. What is funny to you is not funny to another person. What is dirty to you is not dirty to the other person. Comedy is one of those things you throw against the wall and see what sticks.
Larry The Cable Guy
#70. Anyone who is considered funny will tell you, sometimes without even your asking, that deep inside they are very serious, neurotic, introspective people.
Wendy Wasserstein
#71. People always talk about how great it is to get older. All I saw were more rules and more adults telling me what I could and couldn't do, in the name of what's " good for me." Yeah, well, asparagus is good for me, but it still makes me want to throw up.
James Patterson
#72. A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors.
Tom Stoppard
#73. I love comedy. Playing the underdog, and getting the laughs is my form of entertainment. I could think of nothing different that I would want to be doing at this time in my life.
Eugene Levy
#74. It's so pretentious, but I believe that with comedy, if you have a good story, 90% of it is casting. Once you get the guys and gals in there, it's pretty easy to make a funny movie.
Matt Walsh
#75. My goal on my bucket list is to write a romantic comedy movie.
Lynda Barry
#76. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy." ~ Jon Stewart
Chris Smith
#77. The best comedy audiences in the country and this is tried and true, I'm not just saying it, in my opinion are Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago.
Denis Leary
#78. There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience.
George Pierce Baker
#79. Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing.
Gilbert Gottfried
#80. I really enjoy playing that everyman part because that part is us, the audience. And you need somebody inside a comedy to tether the absurdity to reality.
Jason Bateman
#81. I love musical theater so much. When done right, I think comedy songs can be the most efficient form of joke delivery. Songs can be the most efficient and the best forms of conveying emotion. Music is universal. It's worldwide.
Rachel Bloom
#82. Laughter is a whip that keeps us in line. It's horrible to be laughed at against your will. Either you suppress unwelcome laughter or you start controlling it.
Keith Johnstone
#83. And in the vine of the divine,
There is a fine line;
Between tragedy and comedy,
That a man cannot define.
Stephan Attia
#84. They are two very different people. It's almost a modern-day 'Odd Couple,' if I had to characterize it, with the two of them portraying pretty close to who they are, which is why it's a hybrid of a reality and a comedy show.
Dawn Ostroff
#85. I really gravitate to the comedy of tonal contrasts. I hope that doesn't sound insufferably pretentious. What I mean is people having reactions to things that seem inappropriate, or being happy in an apparently unhappy situation.
Matt Nix
#86. Will Ferrell is a dangerous man. If he thinks you're in his way in show business, he will crack your head open. He's the Jeff Gillooly of comedy.
Tina Fey
#87. The only thing I can ever do is make a film that I can respond to. I could not make a romantic comedy for college girls. I wouldn't know how that works.
Shane Carruth
#89. It is doubtless a vice to turn one's eyes inward too much, but I am my own comedy and tragedy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#90. I've never directed before, so I need to make sure that people know that I can. The movie that I've written, 'The Sophisticates,' is a ... small ensemble comedy and I hope it's charming and funny.
Lena Headey
#91. 'Wayne's World' is my all time favorite comedy. I used to watch it on VHS on repeat with my brother when I was ten years old.
James Lafferty
#92. The popular definition of tragedy is heavy drama in which everyone is killed in the last act, comedy being light drama in which everyone is married in the last act.
George Bernard Shaw
#93. A lot of times what's satisfying to me in comedy is when a woman successfully does self-care.
Jenny Slate
#94. I love to do comedy, but music is really my heart.
Paul Shaffer
#95. A Christian telling an atheist they're going to hell is as scary as a child telling an adult they're not getting any presents from Santa.
Ricky Gervais
#96. Life, I'd heard someone say, is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. It seemed to me that it was both at once, even for those of us who don't do much of either.
Lawrence Block
#97. Creating a wonderful drama is an art form, while comedy is just entertainment.
Jason Reitman
#98. Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right.
Aristophanes
#99. Comedy is equal to stupidity. As much you are stupid as much you watch comedy as much you stupid become.
Deyth Banger
#100. I'm grateful to be working. The most exciting thing for me is that I never get bored - I've done comedy, drama, musical theatre and now Shakespeare.
Sheridan Smith
