The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.
You can't study comedy; it's within you. It's a personality. My humor is an attitude.
The secret of comedy is don't grow up. That's why some comedians are a nightmare, because they never grow up.
And killing time is perhaps the essence of comedy, just as the essence of tragedy is killing eternity.
I guess the essence of my comedy is to get into a very abnormal situation but act like it's normal.
A friend once asked me what comedy was. That floored me. What is comedy? I don't know. Does anybody? Can you define it? All I know is that I learned how to get laughs, and that's all I know about it. You have to learn what people will laugh at, then proceed accordingly.
When something is truly funny, it's funny all the time.
The true essence of comedy is a baby seal hunt.
Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.
For me, a great joke is an idea expressed in extremely concentrated form.
I don't have to change anything. I think that's the secret to comedy. You want to be universal and appeal to everyone.
There's a sort of magic and music to comedy. Some words, some numbers even, are funnier than others. A Caramac bar, for instance, is funnier than a Milky Way.
When you start explaining why something's funny or finding a formula for it I think it loses some of its funniness.
A lot of stand-up specials for cable are meant to glorify the comedian. They put you in a really beautiful theater, and sometimes they even blow a little smoke in there to make it misty and sweet. They make the guy look like he's a big rock star. But comedy's not really glamorous. It doesn't enhance comedy for it to look good.
