Michael Keaton Quotes

I just wanted laughs - that's really what I was after.

As I was growing up, you know, I'm a white Jewish American born to Holocaust parents. My father fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and my mother's family had fled the czars of Russia before that.

I think that certain things are funny and certain things are okay to make fun of - including myself.

I don't do politics. I just like to laugh.

I think comedy does have that powerful thing that doesn't seem too preachy because you're also making people laugh, so it's really kind of a good tool for messaging.

Comedy arises out of necessity, because some things are so dark that you have to laugh about it.

If possible, be funny.

I love my jokes.

The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture.

Inappropriate behavior makes me laugh.

Bad taste is not illegal. I always got my first laughs as a kid by saying inappropriate things. That's always how we're going to get our laughs as comics.

If I make fun of somebody at my show, believe me, it's something we can all laugh at.

When part of what you're trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.

In England, you laugh at yourselves; in France, we laugh at others.

I've got a great sense of humor.

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.

Comedy is a great slayer of rogues in power.

Comedy comes from tragedy, and being Iranian in America from 1979 on had been quite tragic. In stand-up comedy, I was able to take the reality and exaggerate it.

I always gravitate toward the humor in something.

Parodies came about because Mr. Ford was actually one of the better athletes of our presidents... but he continually had physical accidents... he was an easy target for me. The main idea was to get people laughing.

I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes - anything that works.

I can see humor in almost anything.

Some people don't have a sense of humor.

The minute you're laughing, some people will say you're laughing at people.

The job of a comedian is to make people laugh, but a lot of my interests are in politics so I'm going to use that.