Comedy Culture Quotes

London seems to be a town with a lot of comedy fans and people that really enjoy stand-up.

I am huge fan of Australian comedy. 'Strictly Ballroom' is one of my favorite movies. Definitely the British Commonwealth's sensibility is where I draw a lot of my influences.

Comedy is a shared experience, and I think it's great to open that to a wide demographic.

Performing comedy in San Francisco to begin with is pretty wild. You've got to - you've got the human game preserve to play off of. And it's a lot of great characters everywhere. You work off that, and then you play the rooms, and eventually you get to a point where you're playing a club that is a comedy club, with other comics.

Comedy is a very big part of the English culture, the sense of humor; it's a very dominant trait.

There's so many good comedians in D.C. I started hanging out with those guys. Dave Chappelle was there. Actually, Dave was too young to be in the clubs, so when his mom couldn't make it, he would ask me to pretend I was his aunt, so he could do open mike.

Denver has smart and energetic crowds that appreciate good comedy and don't take themselves too seriously.

I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked.

'Saturday Night Live' will always be this amazing, powerful behemoth, but it's also not the only thing happening in comedy anymore.

I am a standup comedian who has performed comedy in the Middle East in front of thousands of Muslims. And believe it or not, they laughed at plenty, especially when we poked fun at local culture. The Lebanese loved it when you would make fun of their driving and how, in Lebanon, a red light is just a suggestion to stop.

I would make it illegal to walk into a comedy club with a tie on.

I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, 'Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?' And I said, 'Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?'

I got locked into a tradition [at Cambridge] of doing comedy.

I often say that ... I'm just involved in comedy, so I can be around it.

I would say about 90 per cent of drunken idiots in comedy clubs wear ties, particularly in London where I work most of the time.

Homophobia is a tough one. In some places it's actually very OK to be homophobic. Comedy clubs in general are very unsafe spaces for LGBT, for women, for Asian people. So my goal in comedy has sort of been to make this a safe space for people who were like me.

I find I've always been judgmental about comedy (laughs) and it's hard to turn that off, really. But what constant exposure to live comedy does is it makes you give people a second chance.

The only thing I knew in the world as a little kid was comedy. And no other kids in my school cared about it at all. There was no one to talk about it with. You know, we're in a geek culture now where comedy is so giant. I'm one of the people that, you know, works on Funny or Die. And there is just a giant culture of comedy nerds. But back then, I was alone, and I had a little confidence about it because I felt like, this is my thing, this is the only thing that only I know about.

When I started, there was no comedy community, no comedy industry; there were comedians.

Canada has been a breeding ground for great comedic actors, sketch artists and stand-up comedians. We grew up with a different perspective on the world.

I have to tell you, though, the sexism in late night talk is so profound.

I never saw a Laurel & Hardy movie in a theater when they first ran, when I was a kid. But as a child, I knew who they were, and knew the culture of it, what they meant.

Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. It is unrelenting; the news, the stock-exchange reports, and the weather forecast are about the only things spared.

Maybe it's because I come from a very utopian world of being a comedian, but I'm used to many live comedy performances going on in any city I'm in, and each of us is trying to be the best at what we do. I don't think of it as a competition so much as a thriving comedy economy.

The Comedy Store attracts all types of people, growing up I was able to meet them all.