Quotes & Jokes about Comedians
I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. I don't even watch comedians. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. I've never done that in my life. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can. I can manipulate people's reactions. There are different kinds of laughter. Gut laughter is where you don't have a choice, you've got to laugh. Gut laughter doesn't come from the intellect. And it's much harder for me to evoke now, because I'm known. They say, "Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he's a really funny guy." But I'm not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads.
Comedy rules! Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, and there are no rules in stand-up comedy, which I really like. You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to mind, just so long as it's funny. If you ain't funny then get the fuck off the stage, it`s that simple.
Comedy is a socially acceptable form of hostility and aggression. That is what comics do, stand the world upside down.
There's something very weird and abnormal about my particular quest to do stand-up; it's very isolating and self-important.
When you go to standup, there seems to be a common denominator of some form of need or want for validation from the audience that maybe you were lacking as a kid.
It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don't work that way. There was a temptation in the early '70s to reconsider. I decided against it.
I still like doing stand-up now, but it's not the same. It used to be that I was out there with five other comedians. Now I usually just do it alone.
Your kids should not affect my life at all, but they do; I have to pay for HBO just to hear a comedian say "fuck" to protect your kids.
A weird sort of awareness set in, like, 'Wow. My stand-up isn't just separate from everything else I do anymore.' With Twitter and Face book, everything is universal that everything everybody says gets seen.
People do complain about the way I act on stage... They think on stage I act too arrogant, too self-obsessed, solecistic, self-contained, synonyms.
When I was younger and did a stand-up gig, it would take me two weeks to recover. Sometimes I'd get so panicked that I would stutter.
I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.
I think of a lot of comedy being watched alone, for some reason. It’s surprising to me that people are getting together to watch stand-up comedy.
It's very awkward to be kind of big in your own field. It limits what you're offered. People are swayed by the fact that you're a comedian or a musician or whatever they think you are. When it comes to choosing you, they get a bit shaky about offering you a different type of role. But I've really been very lucky. When you compare me to other comedians, I`ve been very fortunate. So you`ll get no complaints.