Richard Lewis Quotes

On the comedy side of what I love as a filmmaker are Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Eddie Murphy; those are my favorites.

I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.

I think in my case, I had no choice but to have a good sense of humor. I grew up with my dad, Danny Thomas, and George Burns and Bob Hope and Milton Berle and Sid Caesar and all those guys were at our house all the time and telling jokes and making each other laugh.

Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura… those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.

I set out to be a cross between Lenny Bruce and Robert the Bruce.

I've always liked and appreciated storytellers like Garry Shandling and Bill Cosby - more long-form comedy. So starting in San Francisco, watching all these great comics - Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle - you get to see them a bunch, and you go, 'Wow, this is where I need to be.'

Let's face it, the great comedians now that are handicapped in the looks department are tremendous writers.

Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.

They don't make you pay for the humor. It's up and down, but they're trying to give you as many laughs as possible in 2 minutes. They are the most honest comedians ever.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.

There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It's definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.

If you're a comedian, you are looking for material in daily life.

I always tell people I went to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.

It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.

Lewis Black taught me stand-up.

I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album.

I work with some of the funniest writers in the country.

All of my comedian friends are some of the best joke writers in the world.

I think I probably would have gone into stand-up.

That's what comedy is like: You have to force yourself out in the world because you're always one experience away from new material.

The thing about stand-up is that you end up meeting your idols.

I don't have any writers. I never get a laugh with somebody else's jokes. I can't do it justice.

Comedians really are like a species. That's not to be exclusive. Anyone can kind of become one. You have to pay your dues, though.

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.