Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

I was thinking about comedy and how comedy in many ways opens us up to ideas and really being influenced by Richard Pryor and sort of the way he would use comedy to really speak about larger social issues.

Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.

I don't think comedy is necessarily an attack. It's finding humour in life. I don't think if you're making a joke about something you're automatically demeaning it.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

In my first story, 'Mr. Mysterious & Company'... I was asked to take out some of the humor because editors were afraid reviewers would dismiss the book as a joke. Today, humor is enjoyed and no longer regarded as literary brummagem.

I loved Woody Allen's short pieces. I was equally influenced by Woody Allen and Norman Mailer. I was very into this idea of being high-low, of being serious and intellectual but also making really broad jokes.

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

You have to be careful what you say in front of comedy writers because they will absolutely make fun of it in the next episode.

Enough jokes on me. We need to do more jokes on all of them. I thought this was a press dinner where I get to make fun of the press.

It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too.

Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.

I don't think any writer is a friend to the reader if he or she is not funny.

It's a very short walk to go from making jokes to getting on a soapbox and going on a diatribe.

I'm sure there are comedians who make jokes about me, but say something funny, not mean.

Comedy can be destructive, and still very, very funny. But if I can do something that is fun to watch and critical of the world but not wantonly destructive, I pursue those kinds of ideas more. The world needs less destruction. And destruction is kind of “easy,” too.

Personally I don't spend much time thinking about being funny. For me it's always been just a way to get by, a way to be likable yet to remain removed. When I speak up, it's not because I have any particular answers; rather, I have a desire to puncture the pretentiousness of those who seem so certain they do.

The idea of vaudeville clowns and court jesters is always to show the flaw, to point out what's not working and why it's not coherent.

Stand-up and comedy is the place where we are supposed to be able to make fun of all of the world's ills.

Satire is tragedy plus time.

Jokes are unanswerable objections.

I'm a comedian. I make comic films and there are certain ideas that occur to me that are comic, with heavy, serious undertones. There are some ideas that are more frivolous to me. The next idea that could occur to me could be comedy about death and famine or something.

I found myself often asking the question, "Who deserves to be made fun of?" Depending on your mood, the answer can be no one or everyone. It took me a while to understand the math of how those field pieces came together. I don't think that ridicule is ever funny, but there are times when that gets the biggest response.

America has got to learn to take a joke.

[Comedy] is an escape from illusions. The audience is...thinking, 'This bullshit we see and hear all day makes no sense.'

Satire is an art best practiced behind the back of the intended target. I think inviting politicians on a satirical show becomes a very big trap. Because one of two things happen: Either you have to kind of unsharpen your fangs because you can't be quite as cruel to people to their face as you are behind their backs... Or you don't defang, and those guests get the word and they stop coming.