American Comedian Quotes

When we did our show in the '60s, during the Vietnam War, you were either a hawk or a dove; a right winger or a left winger. It was pretty decisive, but not nearly as decisive as it is now.

Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.

If hooking a car battery up to a monkey's brain will help find the cure for AIDS and save somebody's life, I have two things to say … the red is positive and the black is negative.

While There may be power in forgiveness, there is even more power in lobbing a Molotov cocktail through someone's dining room window.

Jim Norton (comedian)

I just had to be strong enough to allow myself to be vulnerable. Great Lesson. For art and for life.

Hang by your thumbs, everybody! Write if you get work!

Bob Elliott (comedian)

I've come up with the three things you never want to hear at your kid's parent/teacher conference. Number one: "You're only responsible for the first $10,000 worth of damage." Number two: "We have medication for this." And number three: "It was more than an ounce and he was less than 100 yards from the school."

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

The day you're born, you get the pink slip on YOU. Outright ownership. You must only share that life with those that you and only you choose.

We are all the same person trying to shake hands with our self.

It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.

But remember what drives a man; real men do what they have to do to make sure their people are taken care of, clothed, housed, and reasonably sastisfied, and if they're doing anything less than that, they're not men.

On doing voiceover:

A lot of people think that it's easy to just go and talk in front of a microphone and that's not the case. You're not just talking, you're acting. You're acting in front of a microphone as opposed to a camera. It's a lot more specific of a technique than most people think. It's not, Oh, do a silly voice! Try doing a silly voice for four hours, then take a lunch break, and then do another silly voice for four hours. It's not easy, especially because it's about the acting. So I think that mindset is a little off.

I was watching Batman, the TV show, on TV Land, on the cable. And Robin said to Batman, "Golly, Batman! Why is the Joker so evil!?" And Batman said, "Careful, Robin. The criminal mind sees the world through a prism the solid citizen dare not peer through."
[yelling] BATMAN HAS A MORE NUANCED WORLDVIEW THAN THE PRESIDENT.

People are always coming up to me and saying, 'I love you, love your work.' And then the next sentence is, 'I loved your brother.' John made people laugh, and laughter is a powerful thing,

It's easy to sit on a mountaintop and tell people what to do and how to be happy. I have chosen to do that. Not because it's easy, but for a different reason, which I would reveal, if your mind was ready to handle it, which it isn't, which is also very convenient for me.

There is no word for feeling nostalgic about the future, but that's what a parent's tears often are, a nostalgia for something that has not yet occurred. They are the pain of hope, the helplessness of hope, and finally, the surrender to hope.

Michael Ian Black

The first time we put Debbie Downer on the show, I had a giggle fit that I couldn't control, and the whole cast ended up breaking so hard we could never quite recover.

I'm 83, and I feel like a 20-year-old, but unfortunately there's never one around.

My whole career has been an act of revenge.

I want to tell you about a woman I have been married to for ten years, my wife, Ann, who speaking truthfully, saved me from myself. Who saved me from destroying myself because of my background. Who saved me from wasting my life, drinking my life away, never fulfilling my dreams because of what I had come from, and truly believing and loving - truly the first person to ever truthfully, unconditionally love me.

If you let fear of the unknown stop you from taking chances, you will stifle your true potential.

In Hollywood, we have some of the richest unemployed people in the world. They have sun tans. Some of them have chauffeurs in Rolls-Royces waiting outside. They have their golf clubs ready in the car. There is no law that says you cannot play golf while being unemployed.

Steve Rossi: What is the difference between erotic sex and kinky sex?
Allen: Erotic sex, you use a feather.
Rossi: And, what about kinky sex?
Allen: You use the whole chicken.

There are two things in life that keep me motivated, a cup of coffee and a second cup of coffee.