Jim Gaffigan Quotes

The whole thing about working in front of the camera is to make people laugh when they're not supposed to.

I started out in stand-up, so it's very satisfying to make people laugh, but it usually means at your own expense.

I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.

I'm there to make people laugh. I'm not trying to come across as sexy.

Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.

Comedy is very important. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider.

To me, if you are in the same building with Peter Sellers or John Cleese, or any of those guys and holding your own making other people laugh, that's a compliment.

I know how to make an audience laugh, 'cause I grew up on Third Rock from the Sun, week after week in front of audiences, making them laugh.

I think comedy's just about being interested in comedy and what makes people laugh and experimenting.

I was always sort of a ham as a kid, just always wanting to entertain and to get people to laugh.

There aren't many laughs in that and I remember doing a look and everybody laughed and I just thought, wow, that's incredible how you can do that. So I did another look and they laughed again and then I remember thinking, hold on, this isn't right for this piece, you've got to stop it.

I was born serious and I have earned my bread making other people laugh.

I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren't funny.

I have a very high respect for professional comedians. What they do astonishes me. You have to be really smart and absorb everything, repackage it, bring it back to the person, and make them laugh at themselves. I can make people laugh during my talks because they didn't come to have me make them laugh. It's added value. So my job is way easier than that of a professional comic.

I was never a hammy child. But I could make people laugh.

The first time I got on stage I was 10 years old and I did impressions. I did cartoon characters and I really got the bug for this life when I saw that people were laughing and saw the attention I was getting.

[Making people laugh] was a secret dream I kept and I didn't tell anybody about it until I was about 18.

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it.

That's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

I had a couple of decent laughs on Townies, but for the most part, delivering a joke that you just know is not funny is hard.

In a way, comedy is like sex. The more noise you hear, the better you think you're doing.

I really love comedy. I love making people laugh. But other things also appeal to me.

Good comedy makes you laugh, and bad comedy makes people you hate laugh.

A poet or a comedian can say what's on the mind of people. They should be funny. They should make you laugh. It may be so truthful that it hurts, but it makes you laugh.

Once you learn how to make people laugh, then you get to choose exactly how you want to make them laugh.