Ted Levine Quotes

My job is to make people laugh.

I just want to make people laugh, and I want to do that the best way possible.

I was very interested in acting as a kid. I loved to perform.

Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.

It's fun to do something funny and have the director laughing. It makes you feel good.

Being a stand-up is my mission in life; it's my passion. My ongoing goal is to simply be funny, on my own, in front of a roomful of strangers.

My job has always been to entertain people. I want people to laugh.

All the world loves a clown.

I was the kid who liked making other people laugh, so maybe the comedy came before the acting.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

You've got to love acting and that's true for me. I love the idea of getting on stage and getting in front of a camera.

I love creating characters that are ridiculous and flawed. To me, the most important thing about comedy is the joy it can bring to the performers and the audience alike. I love making people laugh and not over-thinking things. Some of my favorite moments are when I am doing an improv scene with friends, and I can't stop laughing during it.

I love being funny! I started in the theater when I was 9 and, believe it or not, always played the funny part!

The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

I wanted to be a comedian.

I'll do anything to get the laugh. I love it.

I love doing comedy. It's a lot of fun.

When I was younger I always thought, 'If I were ever a comedian I'd make it like a rock concert.' I wanted to generate that type of enthusiasm and excitement.

I've never been that guy who says, 'Ooh, I have to play King Lear'. First off, that'd be a disaster anyway. I tend to read something and see who's involved, and then know I want to be part of it. But I don't think I'm through with comedy. I still love to make people laugh.

Most comics worship music on some level. It's more rock-n-roll to get up there for an hour and make people laugh.

Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.

People come up to me and they thank me: 'I thank you for the many, many hours of laughter.'

To me, theater is the mecca; if you really love to act, that's where it's the most fun, by a long shot.

It takes both courage and talent to stand up in front of fellow human beings and make them crack a smile, and at the same time keep it clean.