Comedy Performance Quotes

In comedy you feel you need to go back to the theatre every now and again, you feel you need to go back to an audience every now and again to see if you're still getting your craft right, making people laugh at the moments you think they should and that sort of thing.

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it.

I don't mind a crowd's not laughing; it's the groans that slow down the show.

I'm not a comedian. I didn't study sketch comedy; my background isn't that.

I always think of comedy as being spontaneous, and yet everything about filmmaking is not spontaneous.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.

I'm a standup comedian who gets to act. I'm never going to not do standup. I love doing it and when I go through periods where I'm doing a lot of acting work, I still do standup.

Comedy club audiences pay up to $25 per person and another fistful of cash to cover a two-drink minimum, so when they don't like something, they let you know - with silence.

I knew at an early age that I wanted to pursue comedy.

I really wanted to, but I just didn't understand how people became comedians. I kind of thought it was something you were born into. And so I wanted to be a veterinarian or an architect. I wanted to be in a band, and for some reason I could understand how you could be in a band because I had guitars and all my friends played music. Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.

Our first gig was a battle of the bands. We did 45 minutes of comedy and never played a note - and we won!

The whole thing with comedy is that you are always in control. Writer, director, actor, producer, and sometimes bouncer. And you are just a piece of their puzzle.

Ego is hilarious - especially the vanity of a comedian. As soon as you see one start worrying about how cool he is or about how many stadiums he can fill, he stops being funny.

Comedy is just complaining in an entertaining way, Enterplaining.

When I was in college I did a lot of comedy.

'Full House' was the first time I had ever been in front of a live audience. I said a line I had rehearsed with my mom, and they laughed. It was wild. To have that energy of the live audience was like, Whaaat? Feeding off that live audience was, to a 4 or 5 year old, a high.

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

When I do comedy, my brain sort of locks up in the infinite possibilities. That's where I get sort of lost. I think, "Oh, there are six other jokes that we could say here!" I feel more at home with drama.

When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to be writing and performing my own sketch comedy. It kind of made me want to do my own one-person sketch group.

Sometimes during my set I invite volunteers up on stage to get speed-roasted and I'm worried that I may have hundreds of people rushing the stage all at once. Luckily I'm a black belt in karate and I can fend them off.

Sometimes I've been more emotionally disturbed by the experience of shooting a comedy than a drama. After 'We're the Millers', I think playing this battered loser who's confidence was at zero for 90 percent of the movie, I did genuinely feel that way.

If you call me a comedian I will be very grateful. I will thank you profoundly. No, I love doing comedy. It's fun once in a while to do a serious part but I really enjoy doing comedy because I love to laugh.

I actually enjoy comedy; it's a lot of fun.

It's usually very, very hard for me to pick up a script that was written and try and see myself as a part of that, especially when you're used to performing all your own material. It's OK with drama, I like being handed great material but I think with comedy it's far more personal and probably a lot harder for me to find a fit.

It's a great time to be a comedian because you've got so much more control. You can say what you want to. I think in the old days with the studio system the performer was a bit of an afterthought. You can be a wildcard on the internet. But if you put something on the internet once it's out there it's out there for life.