Max Eastman Quotes

Comedy, at least the way I write comedy, is just drama with jokes.

I don't write punch lines.

I think you make better jokes when you don't break logic for the joke, unless you make a movie just about jokes.

Humor writing is something that comes naturally to me.

Plus, I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.

Now the point of comedy is not just looking funny, it's use of language. We have at our disposal a great language... and the imaginative, creative use of that language can be at the service of humour.

I can't not write funny. It's literally the only way I know how to do it.

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way.

It's not about trying to be funny all the time. It's more of a document that hopefully is funny.

I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.

My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.

Humor writing requires a rhythm and timing, as well as some kind of connection to the reader, and I think that's how I tap into it.

And, you know, I liked writing humor. Well, I should say, I wanted to write seriously, but it kept turning funny.

The first thing I ever got my hands on was Andy Griffith's 'What It Was, Was Football.' I was fascinated with the fact that every syllable made it funny, and I would laugh even though I didn't know what any of it meant.

I'm not funny ha-ha, but I look for real humour in just about everything I've ever played.

There are thousands of ways to make people laugh - satire, black comedy, slapstick.

Woody Allen's 'The Complete Prose' - It's just the best selection of comic writing by one author. You know it's good comedy when you get quite demoralised about yourself.

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.

Comedies always need to be provocative and catch your attention in a way that dramas don't have to.

In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama.

It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.

Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.

I think comedy, so much of it comes out of the strange sort of golden instant 'cause you don't know why it's funny, but you captured it.

George Carlin is brilliant with words, and Johnny Winters is very creative. It's taking something common and drawing out the humor, being clever with words.

If you play it straight it's funny - the best comedy is always played straight down the middle. The adjustment is understanding from the screenplay that a moment is hilarious.