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

“People who can dance and sing are often very good at comedy.”
John Michael Higgins

“Comedy is subjective Murray, isn't that what they say? All of you, the system that knows so much: you decide what's right or wrong the same way you decide what's funny or not.”
Joaquin Phoenix - Arthur Fleck

“I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it's a comedy.”
Joaquin Phoenix - Arthur Fleck

“Comedy is the three and a half minute chunks of filler on TV between the commercials you sell.”
Emma Thompson - Katherine Newbury

“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