Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Comedy is unique in the sense that laughter is a palpable noise that everyone makes.

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.

I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

I do sarcasm really poorly.

People often can't separate, or can't understand, that to be funny is to be serious; it's a way of pulling people in and not scaring them off. I think a lot of the funny stuff, underneath it, there's a deep anxiety going on.

You have to be highly intelligent to get away with a dumb joke. That takes a pretty smart fella.

Everybody's funny in different ways.

Jokes are very curious things psychologically.

I've often said the most difficult things I have to say to people through humour. I can very quickly put someone in their place with it. But we all walk away unscathed because there's been some funnies around it, and I'll usually make sure that it comes back at me.

Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.'

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to make fun of yourself and to do it in a way that sort of preserves your dignity but, at the same time, lets you play the theater of the absurd.

I always approach every role through a lens of comedy.

One of the greatest punsters of all time, Peter Serafinowicz, is a good friend of mine, and I've been in situations more than once where people have been exhausted hanging around with him.

The really funny moments you notice throughout your life are very seldom generated by one person telling a joke.

Tina Fey is a genius - I've seen it with my own eyes now. She's a very observant person, and I've never seen somebody write such a high volume or as quickly as she does.

Humor without sadness underneath it feels cheap and aggressive.

Comedy is my soft spot.

I always really loved comedy. It's the only thing I was ever good at.

Class does not mean huge possession of money. Mother Teresa was a classy woman. So is Manjula Bhargava, a great mathematician of Indian origin. The concept that you automatically gain class by acquiring money is an outdated thought process.

I think a comedian has to be low status on some level; that gives you the right to do all sorts of jokes about all sorts of different kinds of people.

The thing about comedy is it gives you a platform to expose your own shortcomings, so it becomes a public display of weirdness.

When you're around people who are trying to be funny all day and trying to one-up each other, that's just naturally - if you want to do it - it's going to make you better.