Paul Provenza Quotes

With comedians, you have that understanding that we're trying to get laughs.

I became a specialist at comedic one-liners.

Neil Hamburger writes such cutting jokes.

In real life, comedians aren't funny.

I always loved jokes. It's such a dumb, facile thing to say, but it's true. I remember being a kid and getting those joke books from the Scholastic Book Club and loving comedy from a very young age.

Artistically, I find jokes really satisfying aesthetically, because there's something great about getting an idea down to a sentence or two.

In comedy, I hate that cop-out where you say, "Just kidding." I know you're just kidding. Don't insult my intelligence by spelling it out for me that much.

If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well.

Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.

Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don't know any jokes to tell. And when I do they're really flat and don't work.

I tried to make the punchline as close to the setup as I could. And I thought that was the perfect thing. If I could make the setup and the punchline identical to each other, I would create a different kind of joke.

Comedy becomes intensified in short scenes.

A joke's a very serious thing.

I'm not too keen on jokes that are one-liners. I want the situation to be funny.

Comedy is such a personal thing. Everybody can cry at the same thing, but it's a lot harder to get everyone to laugh at the same thing.

I like comedy as a group sport.

I do love jokes.

I love physical comedy. I love Oscar Wilde, I love Shakespeare comedies, I love improv.

We don't apologize for a joke. We are comics. We are here to make you laugh. If you don't get it, then don't watch us.

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 don't do plays without jokes anymore. I've retired from those plays. I think it's bad manners to invite people to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and not tell them the joke.

Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with.

I don't think comedy will ever die.

I wanted to be a comedian.

I still love a well-crafted joke. Twitter's been great for that.