Comedy Style Quotes

I'm a very observational type of comedian that points out everyday absurdities.

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.

Ellen DeGeneres is brilliant. She's funny, she's warm and she doesn't hurt anybody on her show.

I like bawdy humor. I love bawdy humor, but not dirty humor.

My comedic instinct, is a little bit more rooted in - my mother's British so I've always been more of the dry receiver of the crazy as opposed to the initiator of the crazy. I'm kind of predisposed to be the straight man.

I think everyone's different but in comedy, I try to do my scene to make the director and the other actors laugh. If I can make them laugh and we have the same sensibility, then I'm on the right page.

Hollywood wanted a certain type of comic - that Def Jam comedy style of comic that was very loud, very brash, very much from the ghetto, had that sensibility.

I've tried to create a comedy that doesn't look like any other comedy. Maybe traditionally in TV there has been a kind of formula that says, 'Oh, comedy has to look this way; it has to look super bright.' But the way we shoot 'Insecure' is motivated by the mental state of each of our characters.

I've been doing comedy for 20 years now. I started when I was 13 and I think for the first 10 years I was impersonating other people.

I would love to do a small indie comedy, like a Wes Anderson movie or, like, an ensemble comedy like 'The Royal Tenenbaums' or 'Little Miss Sunshine.' I like comedies like that, that have a lot of heart and are about family dynamics.

The misconception is that standup comics are always on. I don't know any really funny comics that are annoying and constantly trying to be funny all the time.

Mean comedy is not really something that I personally gravitate towards or something that I do.

When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor.

'The Dictator' lands somewhere between wan Mel Brooks and good Adam Sandler, whose 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan,' about an Israeli Special Forces soldier at a hair salon, manages to strike better contrasts with vaguely similar culture differences - it's a nuttier movie, too.

I've shown people Richard Pryor who've never seen him, and most of them don't like him.

I don't think my film style has changed. I'm doing the same kind of jokes I did when I was younger.

I don't know how (producer) Dan Harmon put that together but he did. Everyone gets along and we all babysit Chevy Chase (laughs) and it all works out. Plus we are given a lot of freedom to riff off each other and compliment each other's comedic style. The group is so talented, whether it be Donald Glover or Allison Brie and now Jim Rash who plays the Dean is finally a full member of the cast - oh my gosh, he is so funny. I call him Rumplestiltskin; he can spin comedy out of anything. I am in such a blessed situation - if only more people would watch it.

'Yamla Pagla Deewana' is not slapstick but a situation based comedy.

It's much better to wreak havoc on a show and be a maniac than promote myself. Plugs and anecdotes aren't really in line with my beliefs. Besides, if someone sees me on a morning show and thinks, 'That's not funny; this guy is crazy,' then I don't want them to come to the show anyway.

Larry David finds a way to make jokes about the Holocaust. It would never have occurred to me. And it was funny.

I wanted to cut down on the profanity, because I think I'm funnier without sayin' a lot of cuss words.

The really good stand up comedians can be angry but relatable, and they have interestingly humanizing personalities. Their observational skills are far greater than mine, so I'll just stick to reading lines off a page.

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.

There's a difference between being a comic and a comedian. A comic is a guy who says funny things, and a comedian is a guy who says things funny, and he has a style and point of view that will last much longer.

We don't have a laugh track, which helped Seinfeld a lot, and did kind of tell people when to laugh. It just made it a lot easier. Our show doesn't have that, so it's hard for Middle America to catch on.