Lee Mack Quotes

Everyone was doing alternative comedy. I thought I'd distinguish myself by just telling jokes, with differing degrees of success.

I never wanted to do observational humor because I never wanted to tell people what they were seeing.

I like insult comics. Joan Rivers, Dame Edna, people like that.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I do mostly comedy, and it tends to be a subtler comedy. But I think that probably lends itself well to commercials.

I never like to do parodies. I never do. It's just not my style of comedy.

I like to describe my stuff as observational comedy.

It's that I wasn't suited to do the kind of comedy that these people were coming to hear - mainstream comedy.

If you like quick put-downs and aggressive interactions with the audience, you will probably not enjoy the rambles of an unusual character act making jokes about cats for an hour.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.

I'm not one of those kind of people who does the observational 'Hey, don't you hate it when you're at the grocery store and the line's long and the cash register starts taking too long.' I don't really do that kind of stuff. I'm heavy on persona, and I do a lot of interacting with the audience.

Stand-up comics reflect less of a visual humor and more of a commentary.

My standup is observational, but it's self-observational, and it's self-deprecating, definitely.

I don't do one-liners, because you don't learn anything about that comedian.

In terms of comedy, I never did five-minute sets or clubs or anything. I just started doing shows. Coming from that theater background, it never crossed my mind that I should start doing five-minute sets.

If you like a conversational style of comedy, if you like comedy that's a little dangerous, I'm your guy.

When comics are in the room, people have a tendency to try to make them laugh. That doesn't really make you funnier. It makes you a comic's comic, but you aren't going to get a fan base doing that.

Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura… those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.

I'm trying to think if there was ever the Lenny Bruce-y, observational, George Carlin kind of magician: "You know what I hate is ..." I don't think that ever existed.

I don't think my film style has changed. I'm doing the same kind of jokes I did when I was younger.

I've always had my voice as a comic. I was never that into politics, or prop comedy.

I got into comedy at exactly the right moment.

I started out splitting my time between the Kansas City and St. Louis comedy scenes, which both had bluer sensibilities than other cities that I've worked.

I'm a very observational type of comedian that points out everyday absurdities.