Bill Maher Quotes

If my mum or my wife says that something isn't funny, I know I've struck gold.

I think I could have a funnier, more economic sets. But that's the comedy I do. And I understand if people aren't interested in it and would rather listen to someone else. But I'll never understand the anger people have toward me.

I don't think I've ever died on stage. I've had jokes that died on stage. I've told a joke and absolutely nothing. They didn't know it was the end of the joke.

People walked out on Richard Pryor and he's the funniest man alive.

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh. That's my audience. They'll laugh at the dead terrorist.

When someone goes, 'Oh, this group is really pissed off at what you said,' there's not a piece of my body that goes, 'Sweet!' That means I did it wrong. I'm just trying to make people laugh.

Jay Leno told me once, 'Don't do jokes about things you don't know about.'

I've definitely seen people get angry or really uncomfortable with stuff I've made in the past. And my stand-up, if you could call what I do stand-up, is quite aggressive, too.

I had one guy say, 'I watched your show and didn't agree with what you said.' And I'm like, 'It's a joke. How could you not agree? I can understand you saying it's not funny.' But it's like my going onstage and doing a knock-knock and somebody going, 'I disagree. There's no door here.'

Comedy is very interesting because you can very quickly cross into dangerous territory. I mean look at what happened, unfortunately, (in) Paris a couple of weeks ago. They were making comics - which were really satire - but it offended people. I'm not saying the reaction was justified but there's definitely a line when you're doing comedy or satire and how it might affect somebody. That's the thing you have to watch and I think you have to be respectful of it.

I mean, people who watch Jon Stewart's show every night don't think he went far enough, because he couldn't do what he does on his show every night, because it's a different job. The same thing with Chris Rock. He can't come out and do a tossed-salad routine, the way he does on his HBO shows, because this is the Academy Awards.

I don't know what's funny and what's not so I test out all of my material in front of audiences.

I started out in stand-up, so it's very satisfying to make people laugh, but it usually means at your own expense.

With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you have no idea if it's going to work. And then you get the response. It's great when it's good.

When I see that man on the telly - 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' No! I'm definitely not! I find most of it quite offensive!

I think any time you take on touchy subjects, you're going to offend some people, or you're going to please others.

Once when Larry the Cable Guy was on Conan's show, Conan O'Brien was so offended by Larry's material, he had to walk away from the desk he was so offended.

I like trying jokes and seeing the response, and if I end up doing it in my act, it won't be 140 characters. Twitter is helpful that way to me. It's like a message in a bottle. But a lot of times I think I tweet the stuff I would like to say to teenage me.

In a way, comedy is like sex. The more noise you hear, the better you think you're doing.

If I'm not on tour, I can run down to the comedy club and do a little stand-up. If you're an actor, you can't go - I guess there's forms of it.

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

I think Mitch Hedberg is one of the great comedians of the past 20 years.

I did one of the worst shows for that kind of thing in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is one of the most liberal spots on the planet. There were numerous people who walked out, somebody had thrown a beer, I had people yelling and screaming.

I think anybody in front of a crowd is a comedian.

I can't get upset about 'offensive to women' or 'offensive to blacks' or 'offensive to Native Americans' or 'offensive to Jews' ... Offend! I can't get worked up about it. Offend!