Paul F. Tompkins Quotes

I'm a great audience myself. I tried to keep in the background while others were on, but sometimes I'd just get hysterical.

I was a comedian in Russia, and I worked on the cruise ships there. I met a lot of Americans, and they were laughing even though I didn't speak their language.

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it.

When I'm on stage, and when I'm comfortable or uncomfortable, I have sort of a knee-jerk reaction to try to make people laugh. It's my version of a handshake to show that I want to make a connection and to show what I'm truly like. It's kind of my statement like, "This is what I'm really like. I'd like you to love me."

I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.

And usually I'm not watching the screen. I'm kind of sitting and looking off to the side, spying on people to see what they react to' cause it's - as Joe Ranft used to say, you know, animation is like telling a joke and waiting for three years to see if anyone laughs

There aren't many laughs in that and I remember doing a look and everybody laughed and I just thought, wow, that's incredible how you can do that. So I did another look and they laughed again and then I remember thinking, hold on, this isn't right for this piece, you've got to stop it.

I had developed a survival skill of using my wit to score for myself. If a scene was dying, I'd lob in these little bombshell lines that would get me some attention and a laugh without really helping the scene.

We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.

One thing House needs Wilson for is vanity. He needs someone to laugh at his jokes.

The things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people laugh because they've been through it too. The closest thing to humor is tragedy.

Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry -- and the world laughs harder.

I want to be on that thing that people watch while they're eating a quick dinner before they go out, or to cheer them up. I want to make people laugh every day, if I can.

It's quite easy to make a load of people laugh, it's often a reflex action, but I think to make them cry is harder without manipulating them.

Being onstage and performing, the high of that, and people coming to see you, and getting to make them laugh - that's what gets me hyped up. It's a nervous excitement.

There are two things you can't argue in film: comedy and eroticism. If something doesn't make you laugh, no one can tell you why it's funny, and it's difficult to reason someone out of an erection.

A joke isn't a joke until someone laughs.

When we laugh we temporarily give ourselves over to the person who makes us laugh.

It's much easier to make people cry than to laugh.

That's a lovely experience when you make an audience laugh. Then the nerves go away for a bit. And sometimes you do things then that you've never done before that are really funny.

I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist.

It's not terribly dignified to have anyone seeing one laugh at one's own material.

Humor is a great defense, and an offense too. Usually the recipient isn't too happy about it, but the people around are laughing.

I'd love to do comedy. I'd probably have to get my laughing fits in check, because generally if I've done comedy, I'm usually the straight character that plays against the very obviously funny character, so that's really hard when the person is really hilarious.

To see a comedy in an environment where you're surrounded by other people that are laughing is great. That's probably more satisfying than just watching it by yourself.