Calvin Trillin Quotes

Comedy's really subjective, you know.

How can you analyse what is funny? What's funny to one isn't funny to another... What's funny to you is a personal thing.

Not everybody agrees on what's funny, obviously.

The most important thing is to write material that YOU think is funny. If you don't think it's funny, but you're convinced that other people will think it is, well they won't.

You know, what's funny to one person is not at all to someone else.

Comedy is a very personal thing, and some people will find it funny, some people won't.

I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.

In comedy, it's so subjective; there is no right or wrong.

Some people don't have a sense of humor about certain things, and other people do.

I still think that, hopefully, you're not ahead of the jokes, and I think that has value. There is a punchline and it's pointed - and, again, whether you think it's funny or not, that's subjective.

If I think something's funny, I think it's funny.

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

I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me.

Improv changed my life in the best way. I gained so much confidence and really learned how to use my sense of humor to do something other than make sarcastic comments to the TV, though that remains one of my best skills. I stayed in Chicago for college mainly to continue doing improv, which was an awesome decision for me.

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.

Humor writing is something that comes naturally to me.

I'll think of the idea and then I'll write something down, then within that there will be a joke or two which is the original thing which I thought was funny.

I don't control the line of 'funny,' 'funny,' 'funny,' 'not funny.'

A lot of people don't think of my work as being all that funny, but I think it's hilarious!

I can't not write funny. It's literally the only way I know how to do it.

Comedy's so subjective, and if someone comes to watch, doesn't get it, doesn't find it funny, then fine.

Honestly, I just like to make movies. The funnier the better.

You know, if I started worrying about what the critics think, I'd never make another comedy. You couldn't pick a less funny group than critics - you couldn't find a more bitter group of people!

Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control - that's all I want.

I'm not an expert on the Malaysian sense of humor.