Seth MacFarlane Quotes

Jokes that make me laugh out loud when I write them almost always bomb. I have no idea why.

Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.

I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.

You know, I liken it to - when you write a joke for somebody else, it's like you - you know, like the Wile E. Coyote dynamite plunger, where he pushes the plunger down and then you see the fuse go then there's an explosion in the distance? That's like writing a joke for somebody. When you tell the joke, you're in the explosion.

Comedy is this weird thing. You have no idea why certain things work and other things don't work.

There is no Algorithm for Humor

The funniest thing about comedy is that you never know why people laugh. I know what makes them laugh but trying to get your hands on the why of it is like trying to pick an eel out of a tub of water.

Here's the thing, with comedy - and I learned this from Will Ferrell - you can't be ashamed. If you're doing comedy, you have to fully commit to the joke. Shame is not part of it. If you act shy or uncomfortable about your body, that makes the audience shy and uncomfortable. And in a comedy you just want them to loosen up and laugh.

Improv changed my life in the best way. I gained so much confidence and really learned how to use my sense of humor to do something other than make sarcastic comments to the TV, though that remains one of my best skills. I stayed in Chicago for college mainly to continue doing improv, which was an awesome decision for me.

I'm always trying to make myself laugh. I'm the most enthusiastic audience I'm likely to find, so if it doesn't make me smile then it probably won't work on you. The jokes that only make me shrug get cut.

With humor, it's so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.

I think comedy is one of the hardest things to pull off. You either have timing or you don't, and that's something I don't have for sure.

I know the nature of comedy, and you never know what will happen with the next movie or whether people will find it funny.

Dali had a good sense of humor - obviously you could tell just looking at him; he was funny.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

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

I'd love to do comedy. And I think I have pretty good sense of comic timing, so I'd really like to try that.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

When you're a standup comic, you get up and you try stuff, and you're always kind of seeing how far you can push things.

All of comedy at some level is trial-and-error, whether it's a stand-up trying out jokes or a comedy show trying stories.

Only one in four jokes ever works, and I still can't predict what people will laugh at.

I think one of the perks of getting to do comedy is the ability to hang out with the funniest people in the world.

Everyone knows the feeling where you're in the pub and you make your mates laugh. It's awesome, you feel like you rock. That's what comedians want with a bit of extra ego.

The thing with the comedian is you can make all the jokes you want and not every joke it going to be a winner, and not every joke is going to land, there'll be some that somebody doesn't laugh at, but that's just part of the deal.

Writing comedy is a superpower.