Comedy Inspiration Quotes

Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.

I was always being called upon to be an honorary boy alongside my brothers. I don't think I'd be a comic now if it hadn't been for that.

That's where humour lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that's what I like. I've always felt that's what I would like to do.

I'm really going off of watching John Waters speak one time and I remember he just kind of talked and it was totally interesting. I wanted to hear about his life and how he got started and when did he think he made it, stupid stuff like that. And what his relationship with the mainstream is because he's so far out there, but then he became part of the mainstream in this weird way. He was really funny, though. Yeah, I have to work on my jokes.

I've had jokes stolen a thousand times. But if you can do it better than me, you can have it. I've had jokes stolen from me in the club when I'm next on stage. And my brain will start to turn, and the gears will start turning, and I'll go onstage and create a whole new bit.

I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.

I do comedy at a lot of colleges, and at the end of those shows, I take time to be a little more real with audiences. I try to inspire them to follow their dreams. When I was that age, it was incredible to hear stuff like that.

By the age of 13, I knew I wanted to be a comedian like Morecambe and Wise. So, obviously, I thought I'd better start practising my interviews for Parkinson. Don't look shocked - I wasn't the only teenager to imagine that. Though I may have been the only one to have chosen T'Pau as my walk-on music.

Sarah Silverman. She's the reason I do comedy. Her DNC speech was my favorite thing I ever heard. Sitting down with her and laughing would be incredible.

People like Bill Murray are incredible at what they do and are definitely my flavour. Although Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais are also incredible actors. In their comedy, they make these stupid people feel so real. These guys are really setting the bar very high, and I learn as much from them about acting as I do about comedy.

American voters tend to make their decisions based on a variety of vectors. Professional political satirists employ rather more scientific criteria. Namely: who will provide us with better material over the next four years?

I want to experience as many different tastes, sights, emotions, conflicts, and cultures as possible, so that I can expand the canvas of my memory and enrich my comedy.

Someone asked why I invited Jon Stewart to be the first guest on the 'Journal''s premiere in 2007. 'Because Mark Twain isn't available,' I answered. I was serious.

I started doing stand-up when I was 16, my junior year in high school. My two friends and I would sit at home watching stand-up. They kept saying I should try it, and so I did.

I remember I used to go to The Laugh Factory and just goof off onstage, and then I'd see Dane Cook. He did a bit about his Mom making the bed in the summertime when he was a kid. He just said "Vroom!" and threw the sheet up in the air and the sheet would just stay over the bed for like a minute and a half. All he had were his arms out, but I could see the sheet. And he didn't do anything. He just kept it there. And I went, "I have to write more."

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.

'Monty Python' became my religion when I was 10. It led me out of the depths of darkness. I loved 'The Goodies,' too, and 'The Two Ronnies.' I watched those shows on the public television station in Chicago.

All these movies are observational comedies. I see somebody, maybe a dry cleaner, and notice how they are. Maybe I'll decide to turn a person with those traits into a studio chief.

I knew I couldn't do what Eddie Izzard does, so I just tried to write some stories that were based, or partly based, on my own experiences.

I was inspired by Cary Grant. I wanted to do the kind of work he did and to work in light-hearted roles, in comedies.

I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.

I wasn't one of those kids who stole Richard Pryor records. I wasn't a comedy-nerd kid. I had no concept of stand-up. Actually, the only inkling of stand-up I had was I read one of Paul Reiser's books when I was, like, 12. I found it at a yard sale, and I carried it around with me for six years.

I learned from the guys before me - Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian, even as a kid. Me and my dad would watch 'Evening at the Improv' on A&E.

I was inspired by comedy channels. I loved that they got to do sketches and could be funny and crude and make people laugh. But most of those channels, if not all of them, were done by guys.