John Mortimer Quotes

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

I think Georges Feydeau said comedy is just tragedy speeded up.

In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama.

What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

I always found that drama, really good drama, has a lot of comedy in it.

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.

There's comedy even in tragedy. There's comedy in life. And in 'Castle', we go for that comedy.

In the best farce today we start with some absurd premise as to character or situation, but if the premises be once granted we move logically enough to the ending.

People think comedians don't do drama. Comics are drama. And what is drama, as opposed to comedy? It's all the same to me.

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way.

The word 'comedy' implies slapstick.

The energy in a comedy is very serious. Somebody said comedy is a tragedy plus time. When you have a tragedy, for example, like this, like, 'We're going to die,' and you have time, like, five hours to die, it becomes a comedy.

When I was a playwright earlier in my career - my senior project in high school was my first produced play - I used to put on the title page: 'A tragedy with laughs.'

I think that there's a fine line between comedy and drama. I think that ultimately, the less winking that's going on when you're doing comedy - and this is just my own thing, and maybe it's why I've never been hired in comedy except by Bill Lawrence - but I think that the less winking you do with comedy, the better off you are.

In terms of pure comedic value, 'Tootsie' is brilliant.

I think great humor lies in playing the truth of a situation. I see myself as a performer and that applies to a Greek drama or a modern comedy.

If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy.

Hollywood comedy has gotten really silly and absurd, and I like that.

When you watch one person on stage trying to surmount their fate only in that very action to embody it, it's called a tragedy. When you see a lot of people doing it on stage, it's called 'Fawlty Towers.'

I love comedy that seems kind of a little bit absurd.

I think that a big part of comedy is being made fun of, and it is looking silly or looking stupid.

I think comedy, so much of it comes out of the strange sort of golden instant 'cause you don't know why it's funny, but you captured it.

No subject is unsuitable for comedy.

It's a great counter to doing the soap because it's a comedy. It's real physical comedy.