Eddie Murphy Quotes

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

I was always worried with comedy - what if I came to work and I wasn't in a funny mood? That hasn't been an issue.

Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.

On 'Saturday Night Live,' I never really wrote. You know, I would just - I would let the writers cast me into the show. So my strength - and I put all my energies into performance. I just couldn't deal with the rejection, you know, getting your sketches cut, and it was hard for me.

There are times when I do feel very nervous when I start a film. And I feel very nervous before the release. I do get stuck in some scenes, but that's very natural and human. It happens to all the artistes in the world.

Series television is kind of intensive in terms of time. You fall hard for TV writing, but it's almost love-hate. You're under pressure all the time, but that pressure gets interesting things out of you that are, you know, mysterious.

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

When it's going well, stand-up is the best thing in the world, but when it's not, it feels like all your toes are being pulled off one by one.

I do find comedy difficult. I don't know why. Maybe I think about it too much. There's a tremendous amount of pressure to be funny.

I have 40 years of unpublished material, the ones they don't pick, and the reason I don't redraw them or use them again is that I like to use my brain every day and come up with new jokes.

I lay in my dressing room after being in make-up waiting to go on. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten and they tried to give me time to rest. But I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do anything.

Auditioning is the worst.

When I first started as an editorial cartoonist, I was terrified on a daily basis. Filling that hole the next day, knowing that tens of thousands of people were going to expect something funny. There is still that pressure, but you kind of learn how to cope with it a little better.

I get burned out on standup. But I like acting. I do like it. But sometimes you just feel like a monkey. You just feel like a complete tool. But I like it. I do like it. Stand-up is just more free. A lot more freedom because you just do what you want to do.

I'm a 24-hour tweet machine, I'm a 24-hour blogger. When there's no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer's block.

Some people don't like competition because it makes them work harder, better.

We don't get too nervous for too may things, but on television a few million people are sitting there watching. Definitely a lot more nerves.

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

It's hard to act terrified when you have 200 crew members around you.

You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job.

Auditioning is so nerve-racking.

Walking into a show when I was 16, at that time when it was the No. 1 hit show, and replacing a character comes with so many expectations. I felt a lot of pressure with that.

I've never been able to write for stand-up.

I write in reverse: Rather than come up with a narrative and write jokes for that narrative, I write jokes independently of the narrative, then I try to fit them in.

I'm on national TV in front of millions and I hate making mistakes.