Tracee Ellis Ross Quotes

The fact that you can say stuff to people that other people are only thinking is always fun. It's a great tool for comedic moments, as well.

It's funny because I think a lot of it is simply... We've never considered ourselves satirists, but because we're on Comedy Central and because we're South Park on Comedy Central, we can do any topic we want.

What heartens me is to see '30 Rock' on the air. It makes me laugh from my gut, which I really like to do.

I think that all comics or humorists, or whatever we are, ask questions. That's what we're supposed to do. But I not only ask the questions, I offer solutions.

Humor is the most precious gift I can give to my reader, a reminder that the world is not such a terribly serious place. There is more than video games and drugs and nuclear threats; there is laughter, and there is hope.

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.

A good comedy with a purpose behind it is exhilarating.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

I crack jokes and play games and that's really more my nature than being cold.

I just like making people laugh, and buried in that I like to bring up topics and start discussions.

Art should be witty, like a good Eddie Murphy movie, to make your life a little easier and better.

It's fun once in a while to do a serious part but I really enjoy doing comedy because I love to laugh.

With comedies, it's been very gratifying to be able to clock in, laugh all day, and then clock out.

I've always tended to write comedy, but I'd hate to just write some kind of sitcom or a lighthearted series of jokes and slapstick. I wanted to talk about some deeper things within the comedy.

Very few people took sordid things and made comedies out of them.

I mean, the number one goal is to make people laugh, that's definitely the first aim; but aside from that, when we discuss which topics to talk about, the second goal is to try and make a point about it.

I love my 'Survivor's Remorse' cast. They are so funny and crazy, like a big dysfunctional family. It's so much fun, and I love the issues that we talk about on that show. We deal with nuanced and controversial issues, and we do it in a way that's funny. It's comedy.

'Arab Labor' was light, snappy. We got emotional over things, but from a safe place, from the terrace.

Sometimes it's difficult to laugh at certain things but comedy can help.

Comedy can be destructive, and still very, very funny. But if I can do something that is fun to watch and critical of the world but not wantonly destructive, I pursue those kinds of ideas more. The world needs less destruction. And destruction is kind of “easy,” too.

There's always the day where you do the effort noises, so there's a lot of grunts, huffing and puffing, pretending like you're hopping over things, pretending like you're getting hit, and pretending like you're kicking. If any of that was recorded, it's some of the silliest stuff I'll ever do, as an actor, but it's fun and liberating, in a way, 'cause no one can see me. I videotape myself doing it sometimes, to send to my friends just to remind us how ridiculous our jobs are.

Stand-up and comedy is the place where we are supposed to be able to make fun of all of the world's ills.

The bipartisan approach filtered up through my typewriter. I used to say, "Mad takes on both sides." We even used to rake the hippies over the coals. They were protesting the Vietnam War, but we took aspects of their culture and had fun with it. Mad was wide open. Bill loved it, and he was a capitalist Republican. I loved it, and I was a liberal Democrat. That went for the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after all.

Everybody has their favorite character.That's the only way I pick, whatever is going on in society, whatever I think folks will laugh at that's what I come up with.

As long as it's not an easy, outdated stereotype and it comes from an interesting or emotionally driven place, then anyone can be made fun of.