Aisha Tyler Quotes

There are a lot of great jokes you can sit down and write, but that's just a written joke, versus the comedy of the situation. Ideally, you're pulling as much comedy out of the situation as you can.

I call it predicament humor. You don't do anything that cuts the star off at the knees or worse. You make him intelligent; you give him great ideas and great things to do.

Being an entertainer includes knowing how to connect with an audience.

I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage.

Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.

You write what makes you laugh, and you hope that the audience agree, and so far they do.

I like my messiness on stage, though I watch comics who come at a joke from every angle and I think, 'Yeah! That's how it's done!' But for me it's the audience. If I feel connected to them, I have so much fun, and if not, it stinks.

Making people laugh is magic. I feel like if you have humility, then you can do anything in comedy.

A poet can feel free, in my estimation, to write a poem for himself. Or a painter can paint a painting for himself. You can write a short story for yourself. But for me, comedy by its nature is communal. If other people don't get it, I'm not sure why you are doing it.

I always was a writer, but then I wanted to do stand-up because I thought that was a way that I could perform what I wrote.

The average comedian is kind of an observer looking at everyday things that everyone could relate to and then trying to find the exaggeration in those things.

We still have that same burn, to get that same kind of laughs. So whether the studio wants us to or not, we're going to do it. The money is just a byproduct of coming out with good stuff. Our whole thing is building that rapport with the audience.

I got to a point where I wanted to have some dignity in what I'm saying onstage. I want people to hear what I'm saying, regardless of whether or not it gets a laugh. That became a lot more rewarding than straight acting could ever be for me.

It's never a matter ever, ever - are - we're never trying to gross anybody out, or ever are we trying to shock people. We're just trying to make it funny in a way that makes the audience go, 'You know, that was the first joke they thought of, and they weren't afraid to do it.'

The difference when I'm writing a story versus writing a joke is that writing a joke is so much more about the structure and it's less about the conversation. To me, the thing that I love about stand-up is the intimacy between performer and audience.To get it even more conversational was something that really appealed to me and that I really enjoyed doing. My early experiments with it, with just telling a story from my life on stage, it was so satisfying to do. And seemingly for the audience as well. It's a different thing, and it's a different feeling and a different vibe.

The best way to make friends with an audience is to make them laugh. You don't get people to laugh unless they surrender - surrender their defenses, their hostilities. And once you make an audience laugh, they're with you. And they listen to you if you've got something to say. I have a theory that if you can make them laugh, they're your friends.

Todd Glass has amazing energy on stage. Dave Attell is one of my favorites because he's a one liner comic who is always incredibly in the moment with the audience. As for newer people, I think Adrienne Iapalucci writes some great, dark jokes and Sean Patton has a hilarious voice on stage.

Comics know that they do best. They might not be best to rewrite to another person's comedy, but they know what is best for them. Luckily, I come from both a writing background - with 'Workaholics' - and I also act in what I've written.

I am excited about getting back to what I do best and what my audience likes best, I am writing new jokes every day and soon Ill be telling them every night. Just me, one Jew talking and that's it.

I love to write humor. If I could make a living doing it that is all I would write. The happiest period of my life is when I was writing the sequels to "MASH". I was able to ridicule everyone.

I'm not a comedy writer, I'm a comedian, so I only write stuff that I would want to say.

A playwright... is... the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about.

I would be jokesmithing. I had files with tons of disses that I would try to write as I was on the train going to school.

Write good content about stuff that you love. Readers will find you.

When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.