Comedian's Intent Quotes

I don't think anything's cruel - if you're so sensitive these days that you see cruelty everywhere, unfortunately every time a comedian comes on television, you're going to accuse him of cruelty, because that's the kind of humour that the English people enjoy.

Whatever happens in life can happen on the stage, but as a comedian you should always be clear what your target is. It's fine to be gratuitously tasteless if that's what you are intending to do. It's that old line: I don't defend what a comedian might say but I defend to the death his right to say it.

Comedians who aren't screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They're expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

I'm not the sort of comedian who wants to make audiences think about politics. I'm not clever in that way.

What I say is stupid. Who takes a comedian seriously? I'm doing sophisticated knock-knock jokes.

I'm not a comedian so I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but I think with a lot of comedy the impetus behind it is: I've been rejected so many times and I'm bitter and now I'm going to talk about it.

When I'm up on stage and do a joke, half the people interpret it one way and half of them interpret it the way I want them to.

Occasionally you get that one person that says "I really like that one part of this joke" and you go, "Oh thank you that's my favorite part too." But no, in order for it to be authentic hopefully you have jokes that everyone can just get on board with and then you have a few things for yourself.

When I tell a joke, I don't think about who's listening to it. I tell the jokes I think are funny.