Andrew Lawrence Quotes

I started off at the Second City in Chicago... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime.

I love Dead Ringers. A democratic set, the work was taken seriously.

There's very little you could do to prepare to be a correspondent on 'The Daily Show,' because it's not being a journalist, it's not being an actor. It involves elements of both of those things, but they're not required necessarily as job experience. It's helpful if you know how to improvise, but again, not a requirement.

I was heavily influenced by Andy Kaufman and Steven Wright.

We've managed to keep a spirit of fun, I guess, of urban satire and finding new and odd interesting angles to the ways of life to put on the stage.

When I first started doing these roasts in the mid '90s, they were a lost art, like jousting or calligraphy. But I feel like roasts help tame the room and let off steam... It's like it's all being handled by professionals.

You put funny people in funny costumes and paint them green and we could talk about anything we wanted to, because that was the only thing that fascinated Gene about this particular genre.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

I dress up as a middle-aged prostitute and do a game show.

I did stand-up. I loved George Carlin and Steve Martin.

Comedy doesn't really matter that much; I know that. I treat it like an adult - I don't treat it like a child or a god, which some people do. This might just be in America, but 'stand-up comedy' is something very particular that I don't particularly relate to.

If you don't like the people, you're just doing a sketch. Which, in most cases, is comedy minus some emotional backbone.

I've been acting for years. I always act surprised when Marco Rubio says something stupid.

I prefer to tell stories. If it's funny, then I want to do it on stage.

I could write a whole other book called 'I'm Judging You, America!' I still might.

We're not scientific comedians, thinking like, 'Things have moved on, we need to do this, we need to reflect the world in this way.'

My heroes, growing up, were people like Andy Kaufman and Groucho Marx and people that very rarely drop the persona.

I have never bought into this view that some people have that the job of the comedian is to espouse opinions and change the world - I think the job of a comedian is to be funny.

I always love the court fool in Shakespearean times, in Henry VIII's time. The fool can say all kinds of stuff that the other people can't say, so I'm hoping I might take that role.

I love doing stand up. I think it's a really worthwhile art form. It's so unique in all the things it combines, in terms of it being philosophizing, preaching, speaking truth to power and basic communicating. It's a good way to talk back to the world.

The thing about comedy is it gives you a platform to expose your own shortcomings, so it becomes a public display of weirdness.

Here's my take on Andy Kaufman... For Kaufman, comedy was a skill that was open for examination. He didn't just do comedy, he deconstructed it like it was a transistor set. He pulled out all the wires and switched them around, often in front of our very eyes.

I am very good at comedy off screen. I wish I could translate it so that you could get to see how mad I am.

I really enjoyed doing stand-up. Andy Kaufman was a big hero of mine. I tried to do conceptual stuff like he tried to do.

On stage it's just a wild setting - we have a big screen - hecklers, I'm fighting. It's entertainment, but I want to pierce [the audience's] souls and have them think about what I have to say.