Kevin Hart Quotes

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

I always thought that the fastest way for me to get ahead and get noticed and to do well was to make my act very accessible. When I first started, I talked about family stuff, my dog, my cat. It was all I knew back then; I wasn't forcing anything, but I wasn't like, 'Hey, don't you hate doing homework?'

On one level, I must never lose touch with my audience. But I must, at some point, stop trying to get everybody to like me, and be true to the thing I think I need to say.

I would make a few jabs at myself and go for the audience - they are still as flawed as ever.

The ideas that you find funny and the things that you are offering to an audience are tied up with who you are and your soul and your heart.

You can't worry too much about what you think the audience wants to hear. You just have to hope that you're a likeable enough person that what you're saying will relate to other people, so they can laugh at it as well.

Funny bones, to me, are more important than funny lines. If a comedian is just not likable and doing the lines, you could read them yourself. Whereas if someone [you like] shambles out, and they tell you what a bad day they've had, they don't have to say anything. I love them. I want to hug them because they've been through something. And it comes back to empathy, always empathy.

I'm just going to be the best version of me that I could possibly be and be as funny as I possibly can. I've just got to be myself and hopefully people will find me. And my audience did find me.

When I'm on stage, and when I'm comfortable or uncomfortable, I have sort of a knee-jerk reaction to try to make people laugh. It's my version of a handshake to show that I want to make a connection and to show what I'm truly like. It's kind of my statement like, "This is what I'm really like. I'd like you to love me."

People paused to listen to Denise Chávez and she had them - with gum on her shoes, she had them. She said she stepped on gum when she came up to the stage and she couldn't move, so she had to stay in one spot otherwise people would see the Chiclet.

I was fooling everyone by surrounding myself with funny people. But then I put myself out there - writing my own sketches, going on stage with nobody surrounding me - and for some reason people were still laughing.

I think I have always tried to connect my comedy to my art.

I think comedy I've learned is really just about relaxing and trusting yourself and allowing yourself to fail.

I'm quite an odd little part of the Venn diagram. I'm not a movie star and beautiful in that way. I do an odd thing that's funny and sad, and my face and my old body can take that.

When humor works, it works because it's clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

I'm all about showing people that I'm a little messed up, I have a lot of the same problems you have. By exposing myself and putting myself out there, people can relate to me and my act won't grow stale. I mean, nobody wants to hear a comedian say, 'Life is great.'

Vulnerability is huge. I love to see that in characters. It's something I feel like a lot of my comedic heroes have always done.

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

The only way I was going to be funny was if I was myself, and either you liked it, or you didn't. Either you got on my train, or you didn't. Freeing myself of this idea that I had to fit a certain mold was when I was able to be my funniest.

I wasn't intentionally trying to be different, but that was an element of what I naturally do that happened to be unique enough to spark a curiosity for people.

You have to believe that people don't want what you think they're going to like, you know? They want what you like. Once you start doing that, you actually start connecting with people.

I didn't think I was helping other people. But I think that comes hand in hand with trying to be able to connect with people, and if you make things too personal, then it's harder for people to relate to you. Otherwise, it's just them listening to you read your diary.