Jane Mayer Quotes

Books are my art. The movie is someone else's art. But it's great marketing for books.

There is such a very large quantity of books clamouring for a buyer's attention that publishers have relied more and more on support such as blurbs as a way of getting an independent recommendation from a familiar name, much in the same way that Amazon.com will send an e-mail recommending Book A to a customer who's already purchased Book B.

I just draw what I think is funny, and I hope other people think it is funny, too.

Some people even think I wear a wig. Do they think I went into a salon one day and said, Can you please screw this up really bad?

I think that it's hard for vain people to be funny. I think you can look any way you want as long as you have a good sense of humor about yourself.

I would like to break out of this "dark, brooding" image, cause I'm actually not like that at all. In Ireland, brooding is a term we use for hens. A brooding hen is supposed to lay eggs. Everytime somebody says "He's dark and brooding" I think: "He's about to lay an egg".

I think of myself as a comedian who has the pleasure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about, and that's really it. I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change, but I am far lazier than that.

Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.

I think humor is actually a very serious thing. I think the people who shaped culture, for the better, in the last 50 years or so, more than almost anyone else are people like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and even Chris Rock, back when he was doing the edgier stuff.

I don't think it's ever easy to be funny. I find it easy to amuse myself with a certain sort of cynical dark humor that tends toward the meaner side, like my character in Happy Gilmore. Those kinds of characters come easily to me.

I watch people's behavior and notice things. I think that's why I became a comedian. I notice how stupid the things we do are.

I should be sorry to think it was the publishers themselves they got up this entire little flutter to enable them to unload a book that was taking too much room in their cellars, but you can never tell what a publisher will do. I have been one myself.

I think statues are great; they show what great people would look like if a bird sh*t all over them.

So please don't think I have a 'down' on the MVS people. I'm just pulling off their arms to beat other people over the head with.

The fact that you can say stuff to people that other people are only thinking is always fun. It's a great tool for comedic moments, as well.

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.

I just tell jokes, and I think a lot of people take it too seriously. It's not that I don't have things that I'm angry about in the world, and I think most decent human beings are upset about things, and even upset about things in their own country, but I'm not a particularly unhappy fellow.

When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.

Oh, I was not made for heaven. No, I don't want to go to heaven. Hell is much better. Think of all the interesting people you're going to meet down there!

I'm always going to do whatever I think is funniest. If something's dark, I'll do it. If it's a sock puppet, if it's a stool, I'll do it.

The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

Today's comics use four-letter words as a shortcut to thinking. They're shooting for that big laugh and it becomes a panic thing, using four-letter words to shock people.

I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.

I lived in a town called New Canaan, which is just outside of Connecticut, where they are far too snobby to even mention celebrities. Many American towns are famous for things like, "See the World's Largest Ball of String!" I think my town's would probably have to be "Most Pretentious People".

I think comedy's just about being interested in comedy and what makes people laugh and experimenting.