Marisa Tomei Quotes

I was not influenced by Jack Benny, and people have remarked on my timing and Jack's timing, but I don't think you can teach timing. It's something you hear in your head.

Like hitting a baseball, comedy is very much about timing. To some degree, you either 'got it or you don't.'

In comedy, my strengths are improvisation.

I feel I've always got to keep my stand-up because I never want to lose it.

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

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

I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.

Comedy requires a lot of energy.

Comedy just comes naturally, so I've always gravitated to comedy.

Comedy is like math - you can check your answer because you know you've gotten it right if you get a laugh. It just makes sense to me. I feel like because I've had to keep that tool in my box for so long, I'm ready to show it off a bit.

Some actors try to play parts and do things they can't do. Being funny is one of them. Being funny's hard.

I think comedy, so much of it comes out of the strange sort of golden instant 'cause you don't know why it's funny, but you captured it.

I think I have always tried to connect my comedy to my art.

To be a comedian, you gotta jokesmith, there's no way around it.

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.

The best timed joke or the best timed phrase comes at spontaneous moments and just relies on me as the host to be very quick, and that's what I do.

Comedy will always be central to what I do, it's just an instinct for me, but I am a writer and always have been.

I just love entertaining. I will do anything - stand-up comedy, video games, fencing, internet shorts - I just want to keep being lucky enough to entertain people anyway I can. I try never to limit my art to a medium.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

With comedy, you really want to work things out beforehand.

Nine out of 10 times these guys will hit it-they'll be on something incredibly funny, but one out of 10, two out of 10, they'll fall flat on their faces. That's what makes them great actors: they take those chances, they don't play it safe.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

That's what sets apart one actor from another, and that you can't teach. You can't give someone that. When you're working, putting a character together, or in a scene, that's where things will happen that you have to have the intuition to notice them, and to register them.

To be really great, you need to be naturally funny in order to stand out. But you can work at it, and find the best vehicle that you have to communicate what you're saying to people.

Comedy is like music, and the way to make the best music is to have skilled musicians in your band.