Katherine Ryan Quotes

The thing that made Groucho special was the way he used his body parts. He also had a wicked tongue. People didn't realize it, but when Groucho said something, he meant it.

There's an art to stupid comedy. There's an art to offensive comedy, and I think the key is it's just gotta make you laugh.

I'm not temperamentally into high comedy. I'm not a Noel Coward kind of girl.

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.

I like smart jokes, I like dumb jokes, and I like dumb jokes done smartly.

I have a weird sense of humour. My dad's the same. We love watching 'Monty Python' together.

I'm not hurting anybody. Comedy's all about innuendo. I'm putting it out there just like anybody else.

I don't do jokes. The characters are my jokes.

I tend to like dry humor.

Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did.

Humor writing is something that comes naturally to me.

Comedy is inherently subversive because it turns the normal reality on its head. The art form is all about these questions and contradictions. In comedy, we're dealing with language that we all understand, but words can have a dozen other things around them that alter or affect meaning.

Irony has seeped into the felt of any fedora hat I have ever owned - not out of any wish of mine, but out of necessity. A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me.

I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way.

The hall-mark of American humour is its pose of illiteracy.

That was sort of the 'Second City' approach, which was try to be intelligent and assume your audience is intelligent. We were influenced by 'Monty Python,' too, which would have philosophers in a wrestling match.

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.

Cool is the enemy of funny. You can't be cool and be funny at the same time. Only Eddie Murphy could do that.

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

The thing is, comedy's gone in a weird direction. People are really into ironic comedy and fakeness and cleverness.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

Good comedy doesn't have to be a comedy idea.

The more cerebral, slightly darker comedy stuff is where I love to live.

Jokes are a lot about meaning. I think if we understand what jokes mean and why they work, we'd understand everything else. Genuinely I do.

People like light and silly, and they like stuff that's really energetic, and you get a character in a film bouncing around and screaming, people laugh. That's all it takes. I don't find that funny. To me, what's funny is dialogue and nuance of character and performance.