Joke Development Quotes

I'm not the kind of comic who would try stuff on Twitter, because I have to work up ideas and I can only do that in front of people.

I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"

As far as outlining is concerned, I don't outline humor. I might right down a word or two to remind myself of a punch line I thought of, but the actual structure of a piece I really don't. I don't think it would really help me because for me the process is joke, joke, joke, joke.

Part of the problem of comedians doing specials every year - when the masters do it, it's like, 'Okay, I guess, go for it' - but when people aren't at the top of the top level, bits don't get to cook long enough.

Being a musician means I am 'hanging out' a lot, like driving on tour or being at a show or whatever, so maybe there's more time to interact with peers and develop jokes.

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.

I come up with my jokes by thinking of a topic.

All producers encourage you, whatever it is, to make it more-so. If you've got a joke, can it be funnier? If you've got an action sequence, can it be more exciting? That's the nature of being a producer.

I don't really write jokes down. I tend to have a premise that I work out and test on stage.

I have been recording every single one of my shows since 1994. Every single joke I've ever done is on a hard drive. I can tell you when I wrote every joke I wrote. I can tell you the first time I said it, when I made it different, when I made it better.

I like trying jokes and seeing the response, and if I end up doing it in my act, it won't be 140 characters. Twitter is helpful that way to me. It's like a message in a bottle. But a lot of times I think I tweet the stuff I would like to say to teenage me.

The majority of the filmmaking process is in pre-production. The more you've planned out the more freedom there is on set to find new stuff, to play around, find new jokes and let the actors kind of breathe - but it needs to come from a place where it's completely structured.

My comedy notebooks are filled with random journal entries. It's all the same. I can look back on old joke notebooks, and know exactly what was going on in my life.

All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.

Stand-up isn't something I just sit down and start writing - it's ideas you come up with in the shower, while you're driving, waiting in line.

There's no real formula for doing it, it's either just living life and writing down a joke you think of in the middle of the day and then pieces those together later.