Nicholas Stoller Quotes

I've always looked up to Amy Poehler and, obviously, people like Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Mel Brooks, and the 'Monty Python' guys.

I loved 'SNL' growing up, and I would trick my babysitter into letting me stay up to watch it. My family would rent Marx brothers' movies and Monty Python episodes, and we watched 'In Living Color', 'The State', and 'Strangers with Candy'.

I'm a 'Saturday Night Live' guy. I'm a comedy guy. As long as they're giving it to everyone, I don't care about how low they go, most of the time.

Frank Sebastiano is a real write. He has two Emmys, one from 'SNL' and the other from 'The Chris Rock Show' . The only award I have is an FM-mmy.

When I was a little kid I loved the Marx brothers and discovered Monty Python when I was 10 or 11-years-old. I used to take a tape recorder and hold it up in front of the TV to record entire episodes to play over and over again, so that I could memorise it.

I grew up in an environment of jokes and sarcasm and puns. I talk that way, so I write that way.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

Humor writing is something that comes naturally to me.

My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.

I tend to think that there is a sophistication to everything at 'Saturday Night Live,' including the sketches.

Things I used to get in trouble for writing at 'SNL,' suddenly other people like it.

I can't not write funny. It's literally the only way I know how to do it.

First and foremost, I just want to write comedy.

Jon Ronson makes me laugh. I've read all of his books.

Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control - that's all I want.

I try to write as serious as possible, and then a joke slips in.

In high school, my goal was to be a writer for SNL, then I got into the acting.

At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.

I think we grew up thinking that the funniest things on TV were the old, serious movies. I always liked the Marx Brothers, but the thing that always made us laugh were movies like Zero Hour. That's what inspired us.

I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.

Comedy, at least the way I write comedy, is just drama with jokes.

I think the hardest thing to do in the world, show-business-wise, is write comedy.

Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest.

And, you know, I liked writing humor. Well, I should say, I wanted to write seriously, but it kept turning funny.

Part of my writing style can be attributed to my mother's impatience with comedy, because whenever I told her a story she would say, 'Yeah, yeah, just tell me: is it good for you or bad for you?' Consequently, I think, I was always afraid to indulge in the time that you need to tell a joke, very nervous about anything that constituted an Act II.