Crafting Jokes Quotes

Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.

And writing comedy and it really taught me how to kind of like craft jokes, it sounds like weird but really focus on crafting jokes and trying to make the writing really sharp. At the same time I did improv comedy in college, and that helped with understanding the performance aspect of comedy, you know, because it's different when you improv something vs. when you write it and they're both kind of part of my process now.

You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job.

When I started out, I really struggled as a comic because no one knew who I was, and sometimes I was telling stories, so it would take a while for people to get on board for things.

When you're coming up with new material, it's not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it's working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You're constantly rebuilding.

Even the best comedians aren't always sure what is going to be funny, what is going to work. So that means they're constantly and trying and failing in order to get there.

After you do a joke a few times, you have material that you know works. Although sometimes I have a joke that has worked a bunch of times, and then one night it'll flop.

I love stand-up, but the process of writing is a little more lonely. I want to keep doing both, though.

You never write a catchphrase; you never write something and say, 'This is going to be a catchphrase.' You just write the show, and then in the course of the show, somebody says something, and for some reason it gets a laugh.

So many times I've done a CD, and then the week after I record it, I've got this new tagline that's killer. And it makes the whole bit better. It happens all the time. But that's just the process of comedy.