Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
Big comedy is good, I like things that are big, but good comedy has to be truthful I think and has to reflect some sort of reality.
I never analyze stuff with comedy because it's boring. It makes you stop being funny. Just be who you are and do what you do, and you're either funny or you're not.
When somebody says that a comic steals jokes, it's the ultimate betrayal of comedy.
For me, comedy is constantly presented as this fake casualness, like a guy just walked on stage going, 'This crazy thing happened to me the other day.' And he's in front of 3000 people, and he's acting like an everyman, and he's getting paid so much money.
The best comedy I ever did was when people didn't know who I was.
The people who like my work, I know that I can't trick them into laughing someplace where there is not a genuine reason to laugh.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
If you think something's funny, go with that. Most comedians pull jokes from a place of honesty.
[Hollywood] is obviously so fake, but then comedy is this little carve-out of sincerity. I love it. I get to be funny and do this.
Any comedian who tells you how dark and dangerous they are, they're not dark and dangerous.
I think for me, the best comedy comes from when something feels real and genuine, so even though Miranda is this wacky character, there is a real vulnerability to her that we finally get to show in 'Haters Back Off,' and I think that's what makes this comedy rich and more fulfilling, at least for me.
The king of comedy is dead. Richard Pryor was the king of comedy. The rest of them are the king of copycats.
Even in comedy, you have to be real. It's all about being real. It's how real can you be? That's the challenge. How much are you willing to take on for your character?
I don't think a comedian should even be concerned with being cool or sexy, as soon as you do, you aren't a comedian any more. Looks are still the most important thing for women when it comes to meeting a partner. And that's fair enough, but a sense of humour is really important too. For starters, it's a great indicator of whether you are going to get on. If the first time you go on a date you don't find each other funny, there's a fundamental problem.
You wouldn't know how to perform a sketch that you don't find funny. You just couldn't do it.
The jokes I was always attracted to, and that I would tell for the longest, were jokes where I cared about the subject. Whenever I wrote a joke where I didn't care, even if it was really funny, the third time I told it, it would lose steam.
We've all seen comedians look like they're reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.
I don't watch sitcoms. I really don't. My problem with them is they take so long to film them that there's no spontaneity. I want to see that.
There's nothing less funny than trying to force funny.
At some point in the past, it was decided that women in comedy are never supposed to be shown in an unflattering light. But in comedy, you need all of your tools to be funny.
I'm not a comedian. I don't make things funny if they're not funny. I don't invent funny stuff.
I don't have credibility, I'm a comedian.
I'm not ashamed to tell the truth about what happened in my family. I think that's what makes my comedy different.
