Carl Reiner Quotes

There is nothing more joyful to me than hearing a live audience laugh. Especially when I planned it that way!

Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that's definitely a challenge.

Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.

I enjoy stand-up because it has the biggest reward: instant gratification. You can hear the people laughing.

Comedy is very difficult. I love it because when you do it right, it's the best feeling in the world.

Comedy is hard to do. All the cliches about it are true.

With drama, you know if you're having a true moment, but in comedy, if somebody doesn't laugh, then you know you're not being funny. That's a really fun challenge, and that's what draws me to comedy.

Comedy is wonderful when you really nail it and you hear people laughing, but it's not always that easy.

There's an art to comedy.

I can tell how honest a joke is or how true a joke is by how fast the laughs come.

There's nothing more dramatic than the comedy I've done. Because the comedy I've done is to get to the audience, get them to feel it, or they won't laugh.

There's a difference between being a comic and a comedian. A comic is a guy who says funny things, and a comedian is a guy who says things funny, and he has a style and point of view that will last much longer.

Comedy is not easy to do - where you make someone laugh out loud in their living room.

Comedy is very difficult. You've got to have a perfect sense of timing.

Comedy is all about the character. When you're too focused on the gags, the character suffers, and you don't get the laugh. Comedy has to come from the character.

A lot of things matter in comedy - the script, the lines, your timing, the co-actor's timing, how it's shot.

With comedians, you have that understanding that we're trying to get laughs.

For comedy, timing is key.

I don't like forcing comedy and people just trying to do things just to find a funny beat all the time.

Comedy is not something that a person can fake or learn how to do.

With comedy, it's really hard to tell if something's working on the page - you really need the actors to bring it alive. The scariest part is if people will laugh or not.

If you are writing comedy and try to please everybody, you'll please nobody.

Comedy is so hard; it's so much harder than drama. The pacing of it, the energy of it.

The basic function of a comic is stand-up because it's so straightforward and simple. If the audience don't laugh, you didn't do your job. I've had some audiences where I didn't care if they laughed or not because they were either too drunk or stupid.

Comedy can be more difficult than drama. It requires more attention to timing. In the theater, you're always dependent on the audience for the energy, but in comedy the feedback you get is more important. You can judge by the quickness and the length of the laugh just where you stand with the audience.