Comedic License Quotes

It's so nice to be able to get up on stage and just say the most disgusting, ridiculous, outrageous, offensive thing, knowing it's just between you and the audience.

It's always fun to play the innocent, no matter what you're doing. If you feel like you're doing the right thing, you can get away with a lot comedically. I had definitely missed not having a conscience.

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.

I don't feel those limits when I'm on stage. For some reason, audiences let me get away with things. Remember, it's all comedy. Words. Thoughts. All thoughts are safe and worth exploring.

Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did.

The teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are content with less than absolute truth.

Some people can do things and get away with it. Comics are famously like that. Why is it that some guys can say the most horrible things and it's not offensive, it's funny?

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.

I've talked about my relationship without consulting my boyfriend about whether or not he wants that talked about, and I've also taken a story that has happened with us and, for comedic purposes, exaggerated it or changed it in some way that made him look not great.

The only reason I was allowed to have a career for a quarter century as an insult comic is because it's all in jest and all for fun.

I love playing half squid/half crab guy because you can get away with a level of acting that if you tried it anywhere else they'd arrest you for crimes against acting.

How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?

That's one of the great things about comedy: we can - and should - say the things that other people aren't supposed to say. If we didn't do that, if we didn't push against those limits, we'd just be standing around onstage and yelling.

To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat.

Frank Sinatra enjoyed my humor, so I could say almost anything to him. I mean, within reason.