Therapeutic Humor Quotes

I think people don't understand that comedy is an outlet for me. Comedy allows me to get outside of myself, and exercise this thing that is still kind of scary to me.

I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, "If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I'll stay home."

What's the trick to writing a genuinely funny comedy? The trick is therapy. Take notes.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That's how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it's a release, for lack of a better word.

I'm training to become a giggle doctor. It's a kind of hospital clown who changes the atmosphere on the ward and helps recovery. It's about making patients laugh but also much more.

Laughter is the best medicine, y'know, besides medicine.

It's a barrel of laughs, isn't it? It makes The Day After look like friggin'...insert name of cheerful thing here. It was one of the things that made me really worry about worst-case scenarios. There's something impish and probably somewhat therapeutic about thinking about those things.

I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it's more than that. It's an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids.

A comedian is simply a different kind of therapist. A comedian is a psychologist and a psychiatrist rolled into one. Except I can't prescribe medicine. (You still need a doctorate, which is bullshit.) Okay, so I'm not like a psychiatrist. Fine. But I'm still like a psychologist (except I can't diagnose or treat mental illness).

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.