Comedy quotes

“Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.”
David Steinberg

“I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.”
Jerry Lewis

“The idea of a Japanese comedian was not only a rarity, it was non-existent.”
Pat Morita

“Comedy is only funny when there's real pain.”
Sebastian Stan

“A comedian says funny things. A comic says things funny.”
Ed Wynn

“- Jerry: People just don't know how to do chase scenes any more.
- Hank: You're right. Now, in Mack Sennett's chase scenes, people actually got killed.
- Jerry: That's what I mean. Nobody dies for comedy any more.”

Larry Lindsey - Jerry
Hector Britt - Hank

“The equivalent for a normal person would be to go into work each day in your underwear and try and do your job that you normally do. All of a sudden you can't do anything. That's how a comedian feels when he's doing a new bit.”
Jerry Seinfeld - Himself

“Comedy is tragedy plus time!”
Alan Alda - Lester

“The great comedians imitate children. That's their ability.”
Hal Roach

“It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.”
Jack Lemmon

“Romantic comedies tend to be, for me, an oxymoron.”
Christian Bale

“I'm scared of comedy. I thinks it demands stage experience and I've never been before the footlights. I wish I had. Do you know, I have a curious recurrent dream that I am in a stage play and most embarrassed - like those dreams when one is caught in extreme negligee in some public place.”
Norma Shearer

“- Vivian Orkin: This is my friend Libby. She thinks you're a genius. Libby just did a definitive cinematic study of Gummo Marx. She did!
- Dick Lobel: Interestingly, he's the one Marx brother that never made any movies.”
Helen Hanft - Vivian Orkin
Roy Brocksmith - Dick Lobel

“The best comedy, I feel, comes in a drama because it balances each other out.”
Ray Romano

“- Fouquet: His Majesty's executioner will provide the tragedy when this charming little comedy is finished.
- Colbert: His Majesty's executioner could provide the tragedy before the comedy is finished.”
Joseph Schildkraut - Fouquet
Walter Kingsford - Colbert

“You can't do comedy with a beard. ”
Alexei David Sayle

“- Terry Randall: The trouble with you is you're all trying to be comics. Don't you ever take anything seriously?
- Judith: After you've sat around for a year trying to get a job, you won't take anything seriously either.”
Katharine Hepburn - Terry Randall
Lucille Desiree Ball - Judith

“- Manny: You are going to need a co-pilot.
- Sam Sparks: You are a pilot, too?
- Manny: Yes. I am also a particle physicist.
- Sam Sparks: Really?
- Manny: No, that was a joke. I am also a comedian.”
Benjamin Bratt - Manny
Anna Faris - Sam Sparks

“- Jack Payne: You know what they say is the first thing that a man feels when he shoots a civilian?
- Bob Lee Swagger: The recoil of the rifle?
- Jack Payne: [snickers] Yeah.
- Bob Lee Swagger: Very original.”
Elias Koteas - Jack Payne
Mark Wahlberg - Bob Lee Swagger

“A good comedy's very hard to make, so good comic writing I really enjoy.”
Colm Meaney

“It's really challenging to play comedy.”
Michelle Monaghan

“I don't get considered for true comedies because I'm a 'dramatic' actor.”
Noah Emmerich

“I wasn't planning on being a comedian; I just liked to laugh.”
Jamie Kennedy

“I love doing comedy, and I don't get a chance to much. I get to play lots of serious people and killers.”
William Sadler

“I think the first rule of comedy is that it has to be funny.”
Nigel Cole