Jimmy Carr Quotes

Comedy's so subjective, and if someone comes to watch, doesn't get it, doesn't find it funny, then fine.

Just because you're laughing, it doesn't mean the audience will, necessarily.

Any joke can be funny, but not any joke is funny. Any joke has the potential to be hilarious to you, but more importantly, the joke has the potential to not be funny to you but to someone else.

Comedy's really subjective, you know; that's why it's so hard.

For a comedian, there is nothing better than watching another great comedian.

Not everybody agrees on what's funny, obviously.

There is nothing - nothing - like writing a great joke and having that joke kill onstage.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.

I've experienced plenty of times when something I think is funny doesn't do very well. And there are times when something I don't think is funny makes the audience laugh so hard.

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other.

I mean comedy is something that's very personal and people have strong opinions about.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

When you do comedy, you can't please the world, although I'd like to think that most of my audiences were on my side.

You feel completely in control when you hear a wave of laughter coming back at you that you have caused.

Like every comedian, if I heard a joke that I thought would work, I used it.

I personally find it difficult to accept that there could be anyone on earth insensitive to the comic abilities of Laurel and Hardy, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, or Martin Short. But no matter who the comic entertainer is, there is always at least a minority prepared to say, 'What's all the excitement about? He doesn't seem funny to me.'

Comedy is subjective, and any joke can be funny.

Comedy is a weird thing. You have to understand, it's the weirdest thing you can do. There's no consensus. It's not like... People say, "I saw Saving Private Ryan, and that scene on the beach is just so moving." I can't imagine anyone who would say "I don't find that moving!" But you can show, whether it's Laurel & Hardy or the Three Stooges or Jiminy Glick In Lalawood, some people are going to look at it and say "That's the funniest thing I've ever seen." Some people will say "I don't get it." Who's right, who's wrong?

Once you do a joke and it works it's only good for so long, like shooting fish in a barrel.

There are certain types of stand-up, who are very successful, who do one type of joke, and never stray out of that. The audience knows that he's the depressive comedian, he's the up-beat, crazy comic. He's the one that talks about real life.

When we were doing 'Viva Variety,' we knew, 'Boy, this really cracks us up, but this is not for everybody. This is a little weird.'

A standup set ends on a buildup of tension and subsequent release for a big laugh.

You know, I liken it to - when you write a joke for somebody else, it's like you - you know, like the Wile E. Coyote dynamite plunger, where he pushes the plunger down and then you see the fuse go then there's an explosion in the distance? That's like writing a joke for somebody. When you tell the joke, you're in the explosion.

If in the first 30 seconds, a comedian cannot bring a smile to your face, he is not an entertainer.