Walt Handelsman Quotes

Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.

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.

In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama.

Comedy becomes intensified in short scenes.

A joke's a very serious thing.

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension.

Comedians, we're just people who whine. But we happen to be funny when we whine. Like, if Jerry Seinfeld wasn't funny, you'd want to punch him in the face; he'd just seem like a whiner to you. But the fact is that he's funny.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with.

Comedy works best when people recognise themselves.

Comedy is drama. I think that if your characters are feeling something that is very real, then they have to respond in a way that feels real to them, and some situations, the only response you could possibly have is to respond in a way that's so extreme that people are going to laugh.

I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view.

Incongruity, they say, is one of the main ingredients of humor. Maybe it's because everybody can feel superior to me. I honestly don't know.

In a comedy it helps enhance things that were already there.

When I was in film school, it was said that all good films were characterised by some form of humour.

He sort of gets comic moments. Not a lot of directors do.

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.

I love to do comedy, and I don't think of things as drama or comedy. I think that if it's a funny line, it's a funny line. If it's a funny moment, it's a funny moment.

Comics write to their point of view. If you're an exceedingly irreverent comedian, you've got to see where that point of view fits or produces the most funny.

If you want to reach any kind of poignancy or meaning a lot of times, coming from comedy is the best way to get there.

I think jokes can actually go to places that drama can't.

The best comedy not only makes you laugh, but on the moment of the laugh, you learned.