Al Yankovic Quotes

I think the best music is honest music.

My music is some of the most honest music that's been released and I think that's why people buy it.

I think impersonation is a great art. It's something that I enjoy doing, in a frivolous and lighthearted way. But I don't flatter myself to think I'm an impersonator.

I really just love making comedies; I love doing characters.

I don't consider myself a comedian because I don't really concern myself too much with jokes.

I do idiosyncratic dramedies.

When Jack Black and I started Tenacious D, there were about two seconds in the beginning when we thought maybe we'd have a go at serious music. But we quickly abandoned that when we realized that everything we did tended to come out funny.

I said to myself, "If the government thinks I'm an artist, I must be one."

I don't aim it at anybody specific, I don't aim my characters to make old people laugh or young people or professionals or blue collar, just whatever I think is going to be funny and it just so happens that.

The life that I live and the experiences that I have always affect what comes out of me creatively. I think that's what makes music real.

Comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts - it's a vulgar art, it's one of the people's arts, it's the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form - it's certainly artistry.

I just draw what I think is funny, and I hope other people think it is funny, too.

I think of myself as a comedian who has the pleasure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about, and that's really it. I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change, but I am far lazier than that.

I think satire is a luxury of literate middle-class people. People who are well fed and relatively secure in their beds can laugh at their troubles. They can enjoy sitcoms. For those who aren't quite so lucky, well, the irony might be lost on them.

Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.

In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing.

Brent Weinbach made [Gangster Party Line].I guess I saw it when it first came out. And that is so goddamn funny to me. The guys are real dudes and they're not good, but they're also good enough.

I care about politics, but I have a tough time making comedy out of it. I was so happy to have a chance to be on The Daily Show, and I think Jon Stewart's so funny... but mostly in my own comedy, I care about less relevant things.

I think comedy and music are both things that we need as human beings. I think that both art forms can touch people.

I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it's harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off. Also, a comic vision is my natural world view, but I've grown up in spite of myself and I can pass the comic twist if it detracts from what the characters need. Yes, the life of a saint is hard.

I found myself often asking the question, "Who deserves to be made fun of?" Depending on your mood, the answer can be no one or everyone. It took me a while to understand the math of how those field pieces came together. I don't think that ridicule is ever funny, but there are times when that gets the biggest response.

I think of myself as a comedian who has the pleasure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about.

I'm always going to do whatever I think is funniest. If something's dark, I'll do it. If it's a sock puppet, if it's a stool, I'll do it.

What I do is, I make fun of people and I make fun of myself and things around us and exaggerate things. And I'm never mean-spirited. See, the word insult means some guy who's a real unkind human being. But I don't do that, because otherwise I wouldn't be headlining all these years, thank god, and all these people showing up to see me.

I think comedy is a really, really good tool for trying to say something.