Quotes About What Comedy Is

#1. Philosophy is problem-solving. There's a philosophical problem, and then you try to solve it by approaching it from different angles and seeing what way works. That's what comedy is: you have a topic and you try to just hit it as many different ways as you can.

Kumail Nanjiani

#2. Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.'

Scott Thompson

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. 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

#6. 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

#7. 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

#8. Storytelling is a landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you're seeing.

Lauren Groff

#9. 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

#10. 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

#11. 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

#12. 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

#13. 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

#14. 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

#15. A lot of times what's satisfying to me in comedy is when a woman successfully does self-care.

Jenny Slate

#16. Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right.

Aristophanes

#17. Driving is boring," Rabbit pontificates, "but it's what we do. Most of American life is driving somewhere and then driving back wondering why the hell you went.

John Updike

#18. Comedy makes everything accessible. Watching the news is kind of like being fed your evening pill. What's fun about it? Nothing. And so if you can get news and information about things going on in the world through a comic platform, everything's going to connect.

Dan Aykroyd

#19. So what we are right now is a pair of dickweeds in a hotel room in Sydney. My life is royally fucked up right now and from where I'm sitting, your life is even bloody worse.

Dave Gorman

#20. Comedy is what I really want to do and propel.

Marisa Tomei

#21. As it is, I have a limited range as an actor - light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.

Hugh Grant

#22. When I'm playing comedy, I never do 'jokes.' Sometimes I'll deliver a line in a way I think is more likely to get a laugh, but all the best comedy is played straight. What's funny is the way it hits the world around it or the way it hits the other characters.

Bruce McGill

#23. What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption.

Bryan Cranston

#24. When you see Charlie Chaplin, he stays funny. He doesn't become drama, and so what really seems to endure is comedy.

Leslie Nielsen

#25. When I was in third grade I taught myself ventriloquism ... What's hard is to learn to be an entertainer and make people laugh. I was a few years out of college before I felt I had enough material. Then in 1988 I moved to L.A. and started to do some shows at comedy clubs.

Jeff Dunham

#26. At comedy festivals, we always get grouped with other musical comedians, so you can get to know them and see what everyone is doing. it's really fun and awesome that we're the only girls, because we can tackle issues that guys can't sing about.

Kate Micucci

#27. I do love the road, because for me, the road is very comfortable, and it's very much what I've always wanted to do. It's one of the most appealing things about comedy for me, so I do really have an affection for it.

Margaret Cho

#28. My comedy is different every time I do it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Adam Sandler

#29. We all know what tragedy is. "Yes, I'd rather not have any more tragedy, please. I'll have comedy, please." Comedy, in the Greek sense, only means that it has a happy ending.

Eric Drooker

#30. The only difference between comedy and drama is that, in comedy, I'm going to utilize the tool of creating laughter to deflect discomfort and, in drama, I won't use a tool, but we're going to actually deal with the discomfort and see what comes out of it.

Romany Malco

#31. Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

Steve Martin

#32. In America now every romantic comedy is interpreted politically. I can remember when I was promoting Black Hawk Down we were all being asked what it said about September 11th. Well, it was shot before that happened, so, nothing.

Eric Bana

#33. If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about?

Camille Flammarion

#34. Life is a comedy far darker than drama. It just takes time to learn what to smile at.

Robin Morgan

#35. I read that John Hughes script for 'Mr. Mom,' and I thought, 'This guy is a funny writer.' I went: 'You ought to stick around and direct this thing.' But he didn't; he left, and look what he became. A really legendary comedy director.

Michael Keaton

#36. What is she doing here? I wondered. Hasn't she had enough green-upping?

Lisa Papademetriou

#37. My years on 'SNL' had reconfirmed that what I do best is play for a sort of edgy comedy.

Paul Shaffer

#38. What you aspire to on a sitcom is the feeling of live comedy.

John Lithgow

#39. There is this idea in comedy that you don't want to look like you care about your appearance because that takes away from what's real, what's important. And the real stuff is what's funny.

Steve Howey

#40. What's fascinating about doing comedy about the referendum is, because it is the first time, it is the most extraordinary atmosphere. You find that if you are making jokes about politicians, it becomes intensely political.

Rory Bremner

#41. What is the stage? It's a place, baby, you know, where people play at being serious, a place where they act comedies. We've got to act a comedy now, dead serious.

Luigi Pirandello

#42. People don't understand that that's really what it is. They're looking for a magic phone number or something. And to a certain extent, I understand that, because comedy is treated so much as a stepping stone by a lot of people.

Todd Barry

#43. The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.

Bob Saget

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

Brendan O'Carroll

#45. Anyone who thinks they can write the perfect comedy that everyone will love is a fool. I can only write what I think is funny and hope that there is a likeminded audience out there.

Brendan O'Carroll

#46. I used to see Jim [Carrey] in comedy clubs and tell him 'This isn't going to get you anywhere. What you're good at is that nice Jimmy Stewart stuff.' Thank God he never listened.

Jane Leeves

#47. Comedy is what keeps us alive.

George Schlatter

#48. I think comedy is more my instinct and more what I'm geared towards.

Austin Peck

#49. The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.

Mel Brooks

#50. I don't remember what my favourite comedy film is - truthfully! I saw Borat and I thought I was not going to be able to get out of the theatre because I was in so much pain from the laughter.

Morgan Freeman

#51. Comedy, as we said, is an imitation of people of a lower sort, though not in respect to every vice; rather, what is ridiculous is part of what is ugly.

Aristotle.

#52. Fast food is hugely important in the life of a comedy writer. All we do is order in, and what we're going to eat is hotly debated.

Mindy Kaling

#53. I think what's very French is the mixture of comedy with intimacy and a kind of reflectiveness. For U.S. audiences, the nearest thing is Woody Allen.

Romain Duris

#54. What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

Jason Katims

#55. Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.

Jay Roach

#56. If you're into comedy, you will know what the show is about. We have so many comedy geeks, comedy enthusiasts, fanatical people who go to comedy festivals and follow comedians, and really treat it like rock 'n' roll - which it can be, but more like the geeky rock 'n' roll.

Rhys Darby

#57. This is what my high school life had become - a horror show of epic, mind-fuck proportions.

G.G. Silverman

#58. He who writes books that aim to convince is a comedian, too, just a comedian. What has he got to offer others, apart from chains, still more chains? Fiction never liberated anyone. No one ever brought anything back from voyages through dream worlds.

Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio

#59. Greece won the 2004 European Championship with the oldest trick in the book: man-for-man marking. Why? Because nobody expected it - and by the time they knew what Otto Rehhagel's team were about, it was too late. Great football is like great comedy in that way. It is all in the timing.

Martin Samuel

#60. What they call 'alt-comedy' now is basically what comedy was like in the '80s. People tried different things, and everybody went to the clubs; there was no other place. Then somehow, the clubs became infiltrated by Dice Clay and Carrot Top types.

Jen Kirkman

#61. To me, comedy is a great occupation because I don't really worry that much about what other people think of me.

Joe Rogan

#62. A lot of the comedians nowadays just do comedy as a stepping stone. Take for example Dane Cook. The guy is huge. The main reason he got into it is to do what he is doing now: film and television work.

Gabriel Iglesias

#63. Honestly, it's hard to learn about comedy from comedians. Comedy is not something that you necessarily learn or can imitate. You're funny or you're not, and you hope what you're doing is funny.

Jane Levy

#64. Josh Radnor is that rare thing: a writer-director who thinks like an actor but still knows how to create a comedy with shape and vision. Liberal Arts is the best movie about college I've seen since I don't know what ... Dryly affectionate and super-sharp. Elizabeth Olsen is every inch a star.

Owen Gleiberman

#65. Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.

Reggie Watts

#66. The comic element is the incorrigible element in every human being; the capacity to learn, from experience or instruction, is what is forbidden to all comic creations and to what is comic in you and me.

Mary McCarthy

#67. Everyone forgets that what's fun about a romantic comedy is how these two people are going to fight with each other and how's that going to be funny.

Nicholas Stoller

#68. 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

#69. I never know what my next thing is going to be, and I'm not out there specifically searching for one thing in particular. I'm just looking for something that's new and different. It could be a drama or a comedy, I just want to challenge myself and work with people that inspire me.

Hilary Swank

#70. What Jews do you know who don't make comedy of their lives? It's part of the religion. I'll bet you think all that Hebrew at bar mitzvahs is prayers, don't you? Fooled you, didn't we? It's stand-up.

Jennifer Coburn

#71. I say God is kind. So many people want to do what I do [comedy] for a living, and so he didn't have to choose me. So I don't take all the credit, but I do know that I love what I do, and I see it as a gift.

Niecy Nash

#72. Comedy is not commercial; it is risky, because what is funny in one place isn't always funny somewhere else.

Lloyd Kaufman

#73. I think there's just too much comedy. Sometimes I get requests from people: 'How do I get into comedy?' And I always say that what we need is more people in health care. And less people in comedy.

Marshall Brickman

#74. I'd have to do unannounced gigs because your fans will laugh at everything because they know what you do already. What you really want is a neutral audience that isn't too harsh - a good comedy crowd - but that don't know necessarily what you're doing.

Noel Fielding

#75. Everything is 'just a story'. Tragedy, comedy, end of the world, what ever it's just a story. What matters is making sure it's heard.

Mira Grant

#76. A comedy that is ironic, sometimes bitter, in some cases even dramatic, tragic: This is what Italian comedy is.

Mario Monicelli

#77. There is certainly a higher percentage of wit in British comedy than in American comedy. What always tickles me is the way in which people try to use their intellect to get themselves out of tricky situations but never quite manage to do so - much to their enormous embarrassment.

Christopher Lloyd

#78. The only ironic thing about that song is that it's called 'Ironic' and it is written by a woman who doesn't know what irony is. That's quite ironic when you think about it.

(on Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic')

Ed Byrne

#79. What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing.

Michael Caine

#80. You are you because you love the way the world looks through your camera. You are you because of the way you love your friends and family. Not because some scar is on your body. That's a part of your history and what helps form what you believe in. not what defines you.

A.M. Willard

#81. Comedy is the result of what's happening, not what people are doing. Because if people are doing comedy. It's embarrassing. The individual elements have to be straight-faced, serious, realistic with a firm basis. What makes it comedy is a somewhat shifted way to put it together.

Christoph Waltz

#82. What I like about The Meddler style of movie is that it's a fairly lighthearted romantic comedy, but there are hidden moments where something happens that's unexpected, that hopefully have some kind of emotional resonance that you didn't see coming. I love when a film does that.

Susan Sarandon

#83. I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end, the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

Richard Russo

#84. As long as I get to be doing what I love, which is making comedy and that kind of thing, I feel lucky that I get to.

Andy Samberg

#85. The truth is, I've never thought of myself as the Michael Jordan of comedy. And that's a good thing. You know why? Because I'm not. Wasn't that Richard Pryor? Yes, it was. I know what I am: I'm funny!

Tracy Morgan

#86. I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great part of what it is to be human.

Rainn Wilson

#87. What you want to do is talk about ideas, you write a novel, you have a lecture about those ideas. Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized.

Justin Simien

#88. Regardless of what kind of film, the number one rule of comedy is to never take yourself too seriously and then the next rule is you can't have any self-consciousness, otherwise it kills the laugh, and that will never change.

Ari Graynor

#89. When I'm playing comedy, it is such a crap shoot of what will work and what won't.

Elaine Stritch

#90. I'm a stand-up comic. Anything else I do besides that is a plus, but stand-up comedy is what I do, it's what I've been doing and it's what I'm going to keep doing.

Dave Attell

#91. I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that.

Mike Birbiglia

#92. For me, comedy is a day-to-day report on the human condition. It's what's happening right now. I get maybe 20 minutes of my act straight from the newspaper.

Elayne Boosler

#93. I don't know if there is a gene for comedy, but my dad was a very funny man. He just didn't know it. He was a naturally funny character, and when my brother and I would laugh at things he said and did, he would say, 'What do you think is so funny?'

James Belushi

#94. As for movies, what's great about comedy is that if your movie gets laughs and makes money, you have freedom.

Adam McKay

#95. My idea as far as comedy goes has always been to push the limits of what's acceptable for a woman to do or say or be. My hero in that would be Lenny Bruce, who teaches us that words have no meaning. It's the intent behind them that is what's important.

Lea DeLaria

#96. What the feckin' hell is PMS, I'd like to ken?"
"Petty Male Shit," she yelled.

Vonnie Davis

#97. One thing I'm a big fan of is the theater of the absurd. That's what I come from, that's what I love to do more than anything. What I love about absurdity is the words "comedy" and "drama" get thrown out the window and it's just life, which is absurd.

Michael Shannon

#98. Which is so important, I mean, that's what's so great about the books, is, you know, those two worlds are sort of, the slacker world of just comedy and laziness and then this crazy, over the top action, supernatural world, and you know, combined.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

#99. What the hell? Die in a fire, youth. Die in a fire.

Wataru Watari

#100. I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me.

Khandi Alexander