Lorne Michaels Quotes

For me, comedy was deftly terrifying.

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

No subject is unsuitable for comedy.

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

What makes me laugh is, of course, the absurd, the horror - anything that upsets me.

Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.

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.

The best way to make the most serious point in the world is to be as unserious as possible.

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

Comedically, unpleasantness is great fun.

For me, comedy and drama are all the same thing.

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.

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

I like humor: the sort of gentle humor that points out human foibles.

The energy in a comedy is very serious. Somebody said comedy is a tragedy plus time. When you have a tragedy, for example, like this, like, 'We're going to die,' and you have time, like, five hours to die, it becomes a comedy.

Comedy comes from conflict, from hatred.

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'm like a sight gag.

I think comedy is the perfect vehicle for that which is slightly beyond life.

In terms of pure comedic value, 'Tootsie' is brilliant.

I have always found humor in places where humor wasn't necessarily intended.

The true essence of comedy is a baby seal hunt.

Madness isn't altogether a bad thing in comedy.