Lorrie Moore Quotes

Comedy's easy for me now - it's all about timing and the way you deliver lines. I use facial expressions to get the point across.

I think, in comedy, timing is everything. You and I could tell the same joke, but if one of our timing is off, it won't be as funny. You've gotta know when to deliver your punch-lines.

I'm not good at telling a joke, but I can say a line in a certain way that makes people uncomfortable because they don't know whether to laugh or not, and I love that comedy.

Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings is of prime importance.

Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.

I think a setting is hugely important. I look at setting as a character with its own look, sound, history, quirks, goofy temperaments and moods.

Thing is, I'm a funny actor, but I'm not good at being funny. I'm going to ramble for a second: I'm an actor who can make things funny in the moment, like in stakes or in circumstances or out of character.

I know what's funny, and I probably know the best way to deliver the joke. Whether it's walking out of a room, facing that way, facing this way. I just have a sense of that.

I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view.

Location is a very important aspect to songwriting.

I think it's natural if you're doing a lot of comedy to do a lot of drama, because you have to figure out the real version of the joke.

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.

Rhythm and timing are so important in comedic acting.

Comedy is all about the pause.

Comedy is one of the toughest genres. It is so essential to get the timing right, failing which the humour can fall flat.

I don't know if I have actually good comedic timing. But I don't think I've worked at any timing. I think timing is probably something you can't work at. Well, I don't know. I definitely didn't work at it.

A man without scenery is completely disarmed.

Comedy is tragedy plus timing.

The secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it.

Everything's funny - in the right context and done by the right person.

You gotta have fun with a song, make somebody laugh. You gotta have character. A hard punchline can make you laugh, but you gotta know how to say it.

If you're sitting in a place like Martha's Vineyard, I don't think you're going to write a song about a ski resort.

A lot of things matter in comedy - the script, the lines, your timing, the co-actor's timing, how it's shot.

I've always felt that there's a lot of similarity between doing a comedy and doing a scary movie because jokes and scares are all about timing. If you give the punch line too early or too late, the joke falls flat. And it's the same with a scare.

Something that has been every important to me in all my projects has been location, the place where they are installed.