Norm MacDonald Quotes

My job is summer camp. I come and talk and try to make a TV show funny.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you, and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up, but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over. To me, that's more pure.

When I used to watch comedians with my dad, he laid it all out for me. He wanted to be a comedian himself, and he was so funny. We'd watch stand-up on TV, and he'd tell me the subtext of what they were saying.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

Comedy is what I really want to do and propel.

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

I'm like the master of ceremonies being funny, and then sometimes people you're with, girlfriends and stuff, are like, 'God I wish I had the person on stage to be with all the time.'

I was the kid who liked making other people laugh, so maybe the comedy came before the acting.

My job is mostly to entertain and be funny.

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

I wanted to be a comedian.

When you're in comedy, people always come up and say, 'Oh, it must be so hard.' It really isn't hard unless you're not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.

A lot of critics object to what I do, but I got into comedy to make people laugh, and I've always worked hard.

Lewis Black taught me stand-up.

I never thought I'd do comedy, ever, in a million years. I always thought comedy was just for fun - to me, the real stuff was the real dramatic stuff. Now I know it's all valuable. There's a real excitement, a good feeling when you can make people laugh.

You're at the top of your game if you do comedy.

When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.

My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh.

People are amazed that I do comedy. I always did comedy.

I prefer to tell stories. If it's funny, then I want to do it on stage.

I think I probably would have gone into stand-up.

I did say to myself one day, 'I'd love to be a Jewish comedian,' but that's my only memory with any connection to show business.

That's what comedy is like: You have to force yourself out in the world because you're always one experience away from new material.

As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I've done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.