Paul Mooney Quotes

You have to be delusional to be a comedian.

I've been a stand-up comedian for years, and I can be silly.

I started comedy in, like, 1998.

Stand-up comedy is a raunchy profession.

All you have in comedy, in general, is just going with your instincts. You can only hope that other people think that what you think is funny is funny. I don't have an answer but I just try to plough straight ahead.

I think it's a comedian's job to make everything funny. Nothing is off-limits.

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

Comedy is very controlling - you are making people laugh.

I made a living out of being a class clown.

I know how to make adults laugh pretty well. I don't know if kids think I'm that funny.

Comedy, when it works, is light on its feet and has the illusion of complete spontaneity: as if there is no film, no camera. You are standing there experiencing it all in real time. This illusion, I believe, is why so many people think comedy is easy.

Being a rapper is about being cool, but being a comedian, you're not supposed to be the coolest guy.

The comedian just wants to get a laugh.

I hated stand-up.

There's an art to comedy.

I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.

People ask me if I have comedy writers, and I'm like, 'Are you kidding me?'

I tried do stand-up, and I was horrible. And I'll never do it again.

I think the people that most often cross a line are comedians. I think they relish that, and take pride in that on some level - at least, from what little I've seen and understand about people that do stand-up.

I was always a funny guy. I don't think anybody that makes it to this level of stand-up wasn't a funny guy when they were young.

If you're a comedian, you can change peoples lives for the better in much smaller increments - not their entire life, but for 15 minutes or a half hour.

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

I had no desire to get up onstage and tell jokes. I prefer to stand next to really funny people.

Comedy's all math, figuring out the timing.

I know that if any other comedian came up to me questioning something I did or said, it would be literally settled in a heartbeat. I love comedy. I give to comedy. I don't take from comedy.