inclusive humor Quotes

We have reached a very cynical era of comedy. The Muppets have proven, for 40 years, that you can get laughs without ever doing it at someone else's expense, and I think that that's a really important thing for kids to realize.

When I speak of diversity, I don't mean replacement of white comics. I don't mean acceptance by white comics. We comics who weren't born into the white guy paradigm of 'funny' don't need a handout. We don't need a PC push. We don't need 'a look.'

Jokes are one of the things that bind the culture. If you can't have jokes about everybody in society and if one group is hedged off and protected then that group can never truly be integrated.

It had more layers than an onion. These writers meant business. There was a level for everybody. Your major could be celestial mechanics, and there'd be celestial-mechanics jokes.

The letters I really love are from young actresses who were worried they had to fit a certain look. They say I've opened it up. And I don't just mean plus-size girls. You can push things now. With all the great performances in 'Bridesmaids', it changed how people see funny women.

True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.

There are a lot of good comics, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics - there are black comics that work only black crowds, gay comics that do only gay crowds, and southern comics that only work down South, and so on with Asian, Latino, Indian, midgets, etc. The previous generation's comics were better because they had to make everybody laugh.

Comedians kind of write what comes to them. You can give yourself little assignments, but it's what inspires you. So I feel like with food, it is a passion of mine. It's where my sensibility rests. I love topics that are universal, and I love stuff that doesn't alienate people.

If you get too heavy with the nods and winks, people get a sense that they're excluded from something. If they're in screenings and everyone's laughing, and they don't know what the hell it's about, somehow you feel excluded from the party, or like you're not in the inner circle. As a performer, that's the worst thing you can do to an audience. It's fun, but you have to be very careful with it.