Michael Dyson Quotes

Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible.

Being a comedy writer gives you permission to be an outsider and poke fun at what people think about other people.

I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it's about yourself, or whether it's about something else. It's my worldview; it doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with it.

My work is not so much a direct commentary as it is an open-ended observation of the absurdities around us.

With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.

When part of what you're trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.

Cartooning is about deconstruction: you gotta tear something down to make a joke.

I'm most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That's my forte.

Comedy is the ultimate anarchist.

Comedians are sociologists. We're pointing out stuff that the general public doesn't even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

The best cartoons work by making fun of sacred cows, in trying to inflict the uncomfortable.

Being an outsider helps breed comedy.

As satirists, we get to stand on the sidelines of life and comment on what's happening.

Comedy is a reaction to the world, and I think it really helps to be an outsider. I've always been very interested in people's behavior, to the point of being obsessed - seeing what people needed and reading them, I think that's the backbone of comedy.

I see the absurdity in things, and I think it's my job to point it out.

If written with enough care and thoughtfulness, a joke can make you laugh at a belief you hold dear.

People say the comedy is so shocking, but if you read newspapers or look around generally - I mean, obviously I'm not writing about all the lovely things that there are, which I do see as well - but there is a lot of outrageousness around, slightly covered up. And obviously, it's fun to take that a little bit further.

Comedy deflates the sense precisely so that the underlying lubricity and malice may bubble to the surface.

I think comedy's often the little and the large, isn't it?

I have the kind of show that reminds you of your problems, and then I talk about other problems you didn't even know you had until tonight.

A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. A tautology is a thing which is tautological. A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. If your kids look like you, it's hereditory. If they look like the neighbor, it's the environment. Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.

The best kind of comedy to me is when you make people laugh at things they've never laughed at, and also take a light into the darkened corners of people's minds, exposing them to the light.

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

I love nothing better than a dirty cartoon. I think that it's really, really funny to see adult themes in a genre that's usually directed towards children.

I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.