Robin Ince Quotes

Comedy writing is taking the brief thought and going with it.

The first rule of comedy should be, you must be very lazy. Whoever works should be immediately removed.

If you play it straight it's funny - the best comedy is always played straight down the middle. The adjustment is understanding from the screenplay that a moment is hilarious.

It's very hard to write humor.

Writing humor is not something every single person can do.

And if you can offer an explanation as to why it doesn't work then you've got to the whole root of comedy.

I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view.

I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy.

When I'm playing comedy, I never do 'jokes.' Sometimes I'll deliver a line in a way I think is more likely to get a laugh, but all the best comedy is played straight. What's funny is the way it hits the world around it or the way it hits the other characters.

The secret of writing comedy is to know where it's all going, then get ahead of it.

Humor writing requires a rhythm and timing, as well as some kind of connection to the reader, and I think that's how I tap into it.

Essentially a joke is creating an idea, whether sonic or visual, whether it's something musical or a traditional joke.

I didn't want to do comedy again. It is way harder when you are doing comedy. You can't just concentrate on the character and the plot. In comedy, the writers, instead of obsessing about character and plot, obsess about the jokes.

I think you make better jokes when you don't break logic for the joke, unless you make a movie just about jokes.

What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

People have many theories about comedy, but being just plain funny is the one most important thing.

I'm gonna fix that last joke by taking out all the words and adding new ones.

With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.

I'll accept bad taste in a minute, as long as there's some great comedy minds and performances.

Some people learn comedy, and some people just are comedy.

Writing humor for me is more like a watchful-ness. You have to watch. When you say something funny, or someone else does, it's more like you wait for the piece.

I don't like forcing comedy and people just trying to do things just to find a funny beat all the time.

Comedy is just to me, maybe it's a natural knack, if I can see where the joke is in the writing and I can see where the setup is and I can tell this is the way to make it.

I have such a respect for comedy. It's a lot harder than doing drama, in my opinion; you have to have sort of an innate sense of humor. There are rules to comedy you can learn. But ultimately, it really does require a certain point of view on the world, and that really does appeal to me.

Plus, I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.