Maggie Carey Quotes

I'm always trying to make myself laugh. I'm the most enthusiastic audience I'm likely to find, so if it doesn't make me smile then it probably won't work on you. The jokes that only make me shrug get cut.

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

Everyone tells me I need to do comedy. It's never something that crossed my mind, but to be able to do a true comedy and make people laugh, that would be great.

You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set, because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb, and you know not to tell that joke again... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness.

The crowd is the crowd. You're gonna take them as an individual performer how you take them. The key is how do you learn from them. How do you use whatever is happening reaction-wise to get better.

I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?

I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

Here's the thing, with comedy - and I learned this from Will Ferrell - you can't be ashamed. If you're doing comedy, you have to fully commit to the joke. Shame is not part of it. If you act shy or uncomfortable about your body, that makes the audience shy and uncomfortable. And in a comedy you just want them to loosen up and laugh.

In comedy, though, it's good to get feedback from the audience about what they find funny.

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

I wanted to be a comedian.

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

Specifically in stand-up, I love jokes. I love short, structured ideas and a punchline.

Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. There is no director who can direct you like an audience.

Doing stand-up takes the fun out of being funny.

Comedians walk out, get a feel for the crowd. If it's not going good, we change directions. If we got to drag your momma into this thing, we will. Whatever we got to do.

Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, 'This is where I wanna be.'

Something that's good in the mini-culture of 'Happy Endings' is that the goal is to try and make each other laugh. There is a pretty high bar, and you want to make the writers laugh, and you want to elevate what's already great material - and also, we're like, 'Who is even watching this? Let's just go for it.'

Mama is my chance to be a stand-up comedian. In my mind, it's my chance to be Chris Rock.

I've committed myself to perfecting the art of the straight man. I try really hard not to crack up.

I feel that I'm a stand-up comedian more than anything else, that's my job.

I want to know why people are getting laughs. Why this joke works and why that one didn't work. It all comes back to helping me be a better WWE Superstar. So I love it.

A responsive crowd is great - they help you see new things in your comedy.

Open mics are a great way to rework your material to see what punchlines land best.