Humor as Defense Mechanism Quotes

I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments.

I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.

If life's a joke, then suicide's a bad punch line.

There are more people abusive to others than lie open to abuse themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow.

I grew up in the projects. You have no choice but to fight. My jokes used to get me in fights.

I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class. Because of strength. Because of height. I guess if I'd been able to hit somebody in the nose, I wouldn't have been a comic.

There's a 'Seinfeld' episode, where he talks about why he can't get angry, because his voice rises to a comedic pitch and no one takes him seriously - and that's true of me, too.

It seems to be a common denominator with a lot of comics, this low self-esteem thing.

My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the 10,000 nights I spent alone.

My sense of humor was a tool for me getting past my mother and father separating, my older brother having cerebral palsy, and the bullies in the schoolyard. I had to make them laugh to keep them off my ass. I brought that to my professional career.

It's a sick thing, right: people are afraid of public speaking. I do public speaking, except my public speaking involves the audience only having one type of emotion and one type of reaction. If they have anything other than laughter, it's a failure. That's an absurd thing for a human to try to seek. The main thing to realize is that whatever I say, it's my truth and I believe in it, and if I don't get a laugh off that, then it's not working.

Comics who grew up surviving their childhood by being able to be the first one to make the joke about their weight or their hairy arms - like me - whatever they're insecure about, whatever they're apologizing for, that becomes their strength.

My dad was a big fan of comedy. He wanted to be a stand-up. He loved Lenny [Bruce]. He also loved Lord Buckley and jazz and stuff. He was a hipster. My parents were kind of beatnik-y, you know, for Salt Lake City. But my humor, I think, came from wanting to disarm people before they hit me.

I'm a one-man idiot.

When you are not treated seriously, you develop comically. Its sense of oneself is so fractured and fragile that it's like the picked-on kid who has to become funny.

I was so flat-chested in high school that I thought I'd better be funny if guys were going to like me.

I think being funny had something to do with feeling like an outsider, not feeling cool - insecurity.

If someone made fun of me, I'd be bummed out. But I'd play it like I thought it was hilarious.

Perhaps I am just a coward who loves to laugh at life better than I do cry with it. But when I do get to crying, boy, I can roll a mean tear.

My theory about comedians is that their greatest fear is other people laughing at them. So comedy is an attempt to control and manipulate the thing they find most frightening.

I think maybe I became funny because as a kid, I was a Jew in a town of no Jews, and being funny just instinctively came about as a way to put people at ease around me.

The way I survived growing up in Jersey City was by being funny. It wasn't by being tough. Nobody thought of me as a tough kid, except for the kids I beat up.