Best Comedy Quotes & Sayings

Comedy historians take note: this Gottfried character doesn't have the best eye for detail - and, for a Jew, he doesn't have the best eye for retail, either. — Gilbert Gottfried

In life there are squares and there are circles, sometimes it's best to be an oblong — Benny Bellamacina

Working with David Gordon Green, and Jonah Hill, and Michael Cera, and Drew Barrymore, and all of those people - those are the best people in comedy to work with. Anna Faris. You know, that's my goal, to keep learning and to just keep working with the best people I can. And yeah, we do all hang out, and we all kind of know each other. — Ari Graynor

I would love to play a normal human being with a little bit of a comedic bend that had a love interest. I would love to explore comedy, like a half-hour kind of single-camera comedy. I think that would kind of suit me best. — Reggie Lee

I realised that all one really had to do was just observe. Observe and slightly exaggerate, and you had comedy. Instead of creating a mythical premise for a stupid joke, I found playing off truth got the best result. — Mel Brooks

I have always thought of comedy as an important job and medium, and so I put pressure on myself to do the best I can. — Miranda Hart

I think the best kind of comedy is the least self conscious. I think if you just sort of let the comedy happen without the elbow nudge, did you get it, did you get it. I love straight face comedy or subtle - relatively subtle comedy. — Betty White

Comedy is the finest drug, laughter is the best medicine. — D.M. Jarrett

Comedy is not the opposite of darkness, but its natural bedfellow. Pain makes laughter necessary; laughter makes pain tolerable. — Mindy Greenstein

I thought 'Garfunkel and Oates' would be too confusing, but it ended up being confusing in the best of ways because the first time we played a comedy club, it was because they thought we were the real Garfunkel and Oates. — Kate Micucci

I think the key to working with my husband is that collaboration in comedy is best. — Casey Wilson

I just think 'Broad City' - Comedy Central's answer to 'Girls' - is the best thing that's been put on television in years. It's amazing. — Mackenzie Davis

The first principle of planning is timing. Like comedy and sports and sex, timing is everything when it comes to activism, and for the same reasons. People are fickle, easily distracted, and largely irrational. Hit them when they're paying attention to something else and all the best planning will be lost, but strike when the hour is right and you are guaranteed to win. — Srdja Popovic

I think with comedy I get very sort of critical of myself and try and do the best I can and it doesn't come as second nature. I work at those kinds of films. It doesn't mean I can't do them - I've done two now, and I have a great time doing them, but I just find myself a little bit more neurotic. — Elisha Cuthbert

Professor Irwin Corey had some of the best timing in the world, and that is something you can't steal. He talked nonsense, not punch-lines, per se. It was a great performance thing he did and his timing was impeccable. Pat Paulsen was a master of comedy too. The Smothers Brothers' strength was not in the content, but how it was said. We had a couple of our albums, including the Purple Onion album, translated in script form. It didn't work at all. It is no wonder that writers had a hard time writing for the Smothers Brothers, because they wrote impressions, but there was something else. — Tommy Smothers

Comedy is a necessity to get through life with the fewest scars. Humor is the best antidote to help relieve all struggles. — Suzy Kassem

I came from the Groundlings Theatre in L.A., and there, you're guaranteed to at least try something out in front of an audience. At 'SNL,' only the best stuff gets picked, and it's taught me a very defined language of comedy. You learn the structure of a joke, which is not something I was very good at beforehand. — Taran Killam

Doing comedy is one of the best gifts in life. — Mallory Jansen

What is the world? What is it for?
It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fufillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched.
Assess it like that. And when you're done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe. — N.D. Wilson

The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat. — Douglas Adams

I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.' — Bob Newhart

Rev Run is a living legend of Hip-Hop, who's still making great music, but now he's also the dad to an amazing family, ... This series takes us inside his world. It's a kind of a reality 'Father Knows Best' with comedy, heart, Hip-Hop and drama-all under one roof at Run's House. — Tony DiSanto

Comedy is a comfortable yet challenging place for me. I will always feel an inner pressure to do my best and to improve. — Eddie McClintock

I have remained true to my deepest convictions. I mean the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy - for otherwise how can we manage to bear it? — Penelope Fitzgerald

My love for you is immeasurable
My respect for you immense
You're ageless, timeless, lace and fineness
You're beauty and elegance
You're a rhapsody, a comedy
You're a symphony and a play
You're every love song ever written
But honey what do you see in me?
You're in my heart, you're in my soul
You'll be my breath should I grow old
You are my lover, you're my best friend
You're in my soul — Rod Stewart

Mum just laughed gleefully at his mounting frustration, like the villainous matriarch in a Roald Dahl story. I suspect a TV guide would describe her idea of comedy as 'dark', or, at very best, 'alternative'. — Matthew Crow

The best thing about where comedy is now is if you have a little bit of talent and a strong work ethic, and strong social skills, you can make a name for yourself and you can make money. — Donnell Rawlings

Life is difficult and those who make us laugh are angels. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

I always think it's just best to just make stuff and to carry on making stuff, even if it's not off your own back, because that's the only way ... especially as a comedy writer, I make short films and then show them to live audience, so if they're laughing you know you're doing something right. — Alice Lowe

I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset. — Mike Birbiglia

If you look at 'The Best Man,' there's a lot of humor in that, but I never consider that movie a comedy. I felt that it was a drama with comedic elements and comedic parts to it. — Malcolm D. Lee

By the time Kevin picks me up and we get seated at the restaurant, I'm so famished I'm ready to eat my napkin. Instead, I point across the room and say, "Look, doesn't that girl look like Becky Brady from high school?" And as he turns to take a gander, I grab a roll and stuff it into my purse. I try the trick once more and by the time I have secreted away two rolls with pats of butter, I excuse myself to use the ladies room. I sit on the toilet and devour them both in seconds. They are the best thing I've ever eaten and I would kill to have the remaining two here in the bathroom with me. Yet once the initial euphoria of my crime wears off, I immediately feel guilty. — Whitney Dineen

I think we all have a similar philosophy about comedy and comic performance which is that it's at its best when you can see the pleasure the performer has, when you can see a glimmer in the eye. — Mathew Baynton

A lot of romantic comedies are just light romantic dramas, or the comedy comes off second-best. — Graeme Simsion

I've always idolized Amy Poehler, because I think she's the best of the best as far as female comedy. — Kristen Bell

Don Quixote is the best book out there on political theory, followed by Hamlet and Macbeth. There is no better way to understand the tragedy and the comedy of the Mexican political system than Hamlet, Macbeth and Don Quixote. They're much better than any column of political analysis. — Subcomandante Marcos Laura Castellanos

Comedy fans are the best fans. They embrace and support you doing low-budget work and will follow you to the end of the earth! — June Diane Raphael

The best way to do comedy is to not filter yourself, and then you could always fix it later. You want to be able to push the envelope. — Ken Marino

There's something about courting the darkness that makes some people see the truth in raw, twisted ways, as though they were shining a black light on life to illuminate the absurdity of it all. Comics tell you a truth you can only see from the underside of the psyche. At its best, comedy is prophesy and societal dream interpretation. At its worst it's just dick jokes. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

I love musical theater so much. When done right, I think comedy songs can be the most efficient form of joke delivery. Songs can be the most efficient and the best forms of conveying emotion. Music is universal. It's worldwide. — Rachel Bloom

I actually love Scorsese comedies. He's an underrated comedy director. I think his comedies are some of the best comedies ever made. — Julie Delpy

My school was 90 percent white, but 90 percent of the kids I played with were black. So I got the best of both worlds. I think that is where my comedy developed. — Will Smith

With comedy, I like to not rehearse and just have fun with it, because I think being spontaneous is the best thing for a comedy, in my opinion. — Diora Baird

There's the exciting part about comedy - if you catch an act just before they go mainstream, that's the best. After they hit the mainstream, everything gets watered down a little bit. — Tommy Chong

When I'm playing comedy, I never do 'jokes.' Sometimes I'll deliver a line in a way I think is more likely to get a laugh, but all the best comedy is played straight. What's funny is the way it hits the world around it or the way it hits the other characters. — Bruce McGill

I think the best advice I'd say to any actor when you do comedy is play it straight. — Ricky Gervais

I'm more than a little suspicious of humor in poems, because I think it can at times be a way of getting a reaction out of a reader, or an audience, that is something closer to relief: i.e., thank god this isn't poetry, but stand-up comedy. Some poets are really funny, but more often poets are fourth rate stand up comics at best. But they benefit from the sheer relief of the audience. — Matthew Zapruder

I try to tell the best story, and the story that has some heart and some genuine terror and some social commentary and some comedy and some romance and some sex and some violence. — Alan Ball

I wish I could have a recurring role on 'Modern Family'. I think 'Modern Family' is the best comedy on television. It's extremely well written, extremely well acted and directed. — Patti LuPone

The beautiful thing about podcasting is it's just talking. It can be funny, or it can be terrifying. It can be sweet. It can be obnoxious. It almost has no definitive form. In that sense it's one of the best ways to explore an idea, and certainly much less limiting than trying to express the same idea in stand up comedy. For some ideas stand up is best, but it's really, really nice to have podcasts as well. — Joe Rogan

Think about yourself at least once in your life otherwise you may miss the best comedy in this world. — Charlie Chaplin

I've been doing Nixon pretty much my whole professional life. I was in this comedy group called the Credibility Gap in Los Angeles when he was president. I was doing Nixon on the radio, and when we did live shows I physicalized him - if that's a word - for the first time. And then I did a Nixon sketch on a very short-lived NBC show called Sunday Best. — Harry Shearer

Comedy works best when people recognise themselves. — Jason Alexander

I want to do literally everything. I think I was gifted ... I inherited one of the best comedy visionaries as a director. — Marlon Wayans

Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy,
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lenghtens life. — William Shakespeare

I never want to be called the funniest Indian female comedian that exists. I feel like I can go head-to-head with the best white, male comedy writers that are out there. Why would I want to self-categorize myself into a smaller group than I'm able to compete in? — Mindy Kaling

Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live. — Amy Poehler

The best kind of comedy to me is when you make people laugh at things they've never laughed at, and also take a light into the darkened corners of people's minds, exposing them to the light. — Bill Hicks

I really enjoyed multicamera comedy. You film in front of a live audience, and it's kind of the best of both worlds. It's like doing a one-act play every week, but if you screw your lines up, you get to do it over. — Alan Ruck

I guess as you get older you sort of see the mechanics, even with the best comedians. There's admiration for people I admire, but it's not guttural laughter. It's a wry 'Oh, well done, sir.' But I sort of miss that slightly; I miss the raw joy of comedy I used to get. — Stephen Merchant

The best advice I was probably given and the best advice I could give someone who is trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills. — Bob Newhart

This week's winner for best comedy line about the war is New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer. Referring to - well, it doesn't really matter what he was referring to ... — Ann Coulter

When I hit Hollywood, it was full-blown. I was a party boy. It amazes me that I made it ... to be able to have led this amazing career when I was out every night. Every once in a while I'll see old reruns of myself and I see I'm giving it my comedy best, but with dead eyes - no sparkle. I was in the middle of all that abuse. But now I'm a recovering alcoholic with many years of sobriety. — Leslie Jordan

I think when I feel I'm at my best is when I'm on stage, and it's my version of jazz because it's just riffing or something. — Billy Crystal

Comedy is really best when watched with other people, and I don't really understand people who sit at home watching comedy movies on Netflix. — Scott Aukerman

The best comedy is always played straight down the middle. — Tom Hiddleston

Maybe it's because I come from a very utopian world of being a comedian, but I'm used to many live comedy performances going on in any city I'm in, and each of us is trying to be the best at what we do. I don't think of it as a competition so much as a thriving comedy economy. — Trevor Noah

It's hard to really get that excited about movies. Think about it like this: how many good comedy movies come out a year? Maybe one or two? And then, in those movies, what are the chances that there's a character that I'm the best fit to play? It's really small! — Aziz Ansari

I love Dallas, Austin and Houston. Why? Because some of the best comedians, like Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison, started their careers in Texas, and because the crowds there are comedy-educated. — Bobby Lee

I've always been a big fan of comedy and sketch comedy, and I like to laugh, but you can't just be funny. You do have to work at it, and you have to try to know what your role is and when you can insert humor, or when it's best not to. — Colin Hanks

'Birdman' is basically 'All About Eve' - the 1950 comedy about rehearsal rivalries in a Broadway show, and another Best Picture laureate - reimagined as a Batman suicide mission. The movie couldn't be actor-ier. — Richard Corliss

From long experience in places like Afghanisatan and Chechnya, Sokolov recognised, in the black jihadist's movements, a sort of cultural or attitudinal advantage that such people always enjoyed in situations like this: they were complete fatalists who believed that God was on their side. Russians, on the other hand, were fatalists of a somewhat different kind, believing, or at least strongly suspecting, that they were fucked no matter what, and that they had better just make the best of it anyway, but not seeing in this the hand of God at work or the hope of some future glory in a martyr's heavens. — Neal Stephenson

Ultimately, I just decided stand-up comedy is a huge commitment, and if you want to be the best, you have to give it one hundred per cent. — Deirdre O'Kane

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

I drank the Kool-Aid of being a network star. Once it didn't happen, I realized it wasn't the best version of my comedy. — Mike Birbiglia

I went to a public high school and most of the comedy was coming from the black kids and the Asian kids and the Hispanic kids. And, the coolest kids to me where always the black kids. They were always fashion forward and they always dressed the coolest. They were always the best dancers, and just the coolest people. — Brett Ratner

There's no such thing as a limit on being the best. You can always go for more. That's what it means to be human. No... That's what it means to be me. - Claire Stanfield — Ryohgo Narita

The best way to ruin a comedy is to throw a lot of money at it. — Jay Leno

The best comedy I ever did was when people didn't know who I was. — Chevy Chase

I'd like to give every member of our cast a best supporting comedy Emmy. — David Mandel

One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job, but because I have worked in comedy for twenty-five years, I can probably speak best about my own profession. — Conan O'Brien

Bryce Colton is telling everyone you hooked up after the bonfire Friday night."
"What?" Everyone in the parking lot turned and stared. Okay, maybe I said that a little loud. I hooked my arm through Jane's and steered her toward the sidewalk.
"I went to the bonfire with you. Do you remember seeing me naked with Bryce Colton?"
She pouted and kicked a rock off the sidewalk. "I thought maybe you went back after you dropped me off."
"Why do you sound disappointed?"
"It would be nice if one of us had a sex life."
I laughed so hard I snorted. That's one of the reasons I'm best friends with Jane. I never know what she's going to say. — Chris Cannon

I've never really been a big fan of comedy songs, frankly. I think I enjoy the emotional payoff that the best music achieves to want to waste too much time turning good music into a joke. — Keith Murray

You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colin." Need I say more? — Chris Rock

That's what I think works the best, and what I think makes the best comedy - something that's completely committed and more approached as an acting exercise, as opposed to being worried about whether to be funny or not. The comedy comes from the context. — Will Ferrell

A hilarious academic novel that'll send you laughing (albeit ruefully) back into the trenches of the classroom ... [A] mordant minor masterpiece ... Like the best works of farce, academic or otherwise, Dear Committee Members deftly mixes comedy with social criticism and righteous outrage. By the end, you may well find yourself laughing so hard it hurts. — Maureen Corrigan

'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is a British comedy-drama directed by John Madden. The film is based on the 2004 novel, 'These Foolish Things', by Deborah Moggach. — Tena Desae

It's much funnier when the comedy can happen with me just trying my best to genuinely do a good thing. — Nathan Fielder

I'm always drawn towards the darker stuff, because I think it's just a lot more interesting. But it's also good fun doing the comedy, and I think that's why 'Misfits' has been great in that way, as you get a really good balance. I think it's best to try and do everything as an actor, really. — Iwan Rheon

There is a strong ethical dimension to the best comedy. Not only does it avoid reinforcing prejudices, it actively challenges them. — Steve Coogan

Laughter is the best medicine — Chase Soundly

CHRIS PRATT (ANDY DWYER): Chris had the best audition I had ever seen. No one knew his work and he came in and crushed. He is a comedy savant and a natural actor in a way I have never really seen. Each take is different and hilarious and completely unexpected. His character was only supposed to be on the show for six episodes, which seems ridiculous now. — Amy Poehler

I am very proud of what 'Johnny' achieved in stand-up comedy because he believed entirely in giving an audience the best kick he could. But he was someone who was quite detrimental to my health, both emotionally and physically. — Johnny Vegas

Listen, if you are an entrepreneur who is passionate about your product, but you never ask anyone to buy what you are selling, it will never get sold. Sure, there's a possibility that you can deliver your best sales pitch in your best Sunday suit and they will still say no. But so what? Do you know how many times I've been told no for movie scripts, television shows, and comedy specials? A whole hell of lot more times than I heard yes. — Steve Harvey

Both law and comedy are heavily focused on thought and viewing all angles. To write a good joke, you have to look at a premise every way possible. And with a good legal argument, you have to see all sides to get the best line of argument for your client. Law school made me a better comic, and comedy has made me a better public speaker. — Troy Walker

At some point, I figured that it would be more effective and far funnier to embrace the ugliest, most terrifying things in the world
the Holocaust, racism, rape, et cetera. But for the sake of comedy, and the comedian's personal sanity, this requires a certain emotional distance. It's akin to being a shrink or a social worker. you might think that the most sensitive, empathetic person would make the best social worker, but that person would end up being soup on the floor. It really takes someone strong
someone, dare I say, with a big fat wall up
to work in a pool of heartbreak all day and not want to fucking kill yourself. But adopting a persona at once ignorant and arrogant allowed me to say what I didn't mean, even preach the opposite of what I believed. For me, it was a funny way to be sincere. And like the jokes in a roast, the hope is that the genuine sentiment
maybe even a goodness underneath the joke (however brutal) transcends. — Sarah Silverman

Comedy can be very freeing. Laughter truly is the best medicine. — Christina Applegate

The best thing about serial drama - especially about screwball comedy - is blocked love. — Alison Pill

Shake It Up is a buddy comedy based around dance. It's about two best friends Rocky and CeCe who live out their dream as background dancers on a show called Shake It Up Chicago. They have to navigate life as young teens going to school and dancing on the show. — Zendaya

The two things I understand best are stand-up comedy and martial arts. And those things require an ultimate grasp of the truth. You have to be objective about your skills and abilities to compete in both. — Joe Rogan