Norm MacDonald Quotes

I grew up loving David Letterman and Pee-wee Herman, but as far as live performance comedy, all I knew were the Jerry Seinfeld-type comedians of the world, and that's what I thought live performance comedy was all about.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.

All of my life doing interviews, comedy has been my favorite thing, comedians are my favorite people.

I grew up watching comedy. It was among all the geeky things that I did.

I just respected comedians whether they were or they weren't, from, you know, new or old.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It's definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.

After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.

I've actually done a lot of comedy.

I always feel like you don't do comedy for the special - you do the specials so you can do comedy. That's like a commercial for people to come out and support the new shows.

In terms of comedy, I never did five-minute sets or clubs or anything. I just started doing shows. Coming from that theater background, it never crossed my mind that I should start doing five-minute sets.

I'm very adamant on social media about recommending comedians to people if they don't know them. I think it's so important to go see them.

I started pursuing stand-up comedy in 12th grade.

I've been doing comedy for 20 years now. I started when I was 13 and I think for the first 10 years I was impersonating other people.

I like LA because it has a giant supply of great comedians.

I love comedy and I hope I never stop doing it.

I find I've always been judgmental about comedy (laughs) and it's hard to turn that off, really. But what constant exposure to live comedy does is it makes you give people a second chance.

I think I'm not uber into the comedy scene, but I love to laugh, especially in our business, where you're always front and center over an extremely, sometimes overly-critical live audience. I think it helps to laugh.

What turned me on to comedy was - well, first of all, I like being able to laugh, I like people who can make me laugh.

Comedy started out as my hobby and then it became my profession. It's like being on call all the time, like having a built-in beeper. You can't just leave the office and relax because you never know when you'll think of something funny.

I enjoy comedy but it can become wearisome.

Comedy's been really liberating for me because I've been able to sneak the singing part in through the back door.

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.

I've always loved comedy and growing up it was the comedies that I really responded to. So I don't know how it turned out that once I started acting that I started getting a certain kind of role, that I never saw myself as growing up, so I really love when I get an opportunity to play a [comedian] role.

I didn't really get into comedy until a couple months before I started doing comedy.