Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I try to have a balance of things you like and things you don't like about a character. But once you start that, all these scripts are like, "You play the douchebag friend of Ashton Kutcher." It's all these characters that are overconfident or hyper-masculine.
I was in the drug store the other day trying to get a cold medication...Not easy. There's an entire wall of products you need. You stand there going,"Well, this one is quick acting but this is long lasting...Which is more important, the present or the future?"
Some people that work for Hot Pockets came to my Denver Paramount Theater show. They brought these hot pocket boxes the size of suit cases for me to sign. I wrote "these are WMD's" on the boxes. The HP people seem to have a good sense of humor about all of it.
I don't think it's any coincidence that I lost my religious faith and 'manned up' in the same year. I was described somewhere as a lapsed Catholic, which is funny because I'm not going back! I want to achieve things rather than live life in an animalistic way.
My general advice for writers/comedians is, make stuff you like and are proud of. Put it in a place where people can see it, whether that's onstage or on the Internet or wherever. Just do the things that make you happy creatively, and then show them to people.
I was born and raised in Pawnee City, Nebraska. I lived right next to the sale barn and I raised pigs. My dad was a guidance counselor at Wymore High School. He was also a preacher and did farming as well. We leased out our crop land but had cattle and horses.
For 15 years of my life I smoked, I drank, I used to do drugs... but during that time, I never once thought I was going to die. But the second I set foot on a stairmaster -the second- I am sure my heart is gonna explode and blood is gonna spray out of my nose.
Homophobia is a tough one. In some places it's actually very OK to be homophobic. Comedy clubs in general are very unsafe spaces for LGBT, for women, for Asian people. So my goal in comedy has sort of been to make this a safe space for people who were like me.
If you had a successful TV show, people wanted to see you live. Promoters had had practice with pop groups, and 'Python' achieved a similar status. We also had lots of rock star fans - George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Robert Plant. Promoters saw that and liked it.
I talk about race and culture, and that's what my fans respond to. If you grew up in an environment where race and culture were never an issue for you, or where you don't see the humor in our so-called differences, then you might not respond to what I'm doing.
Working with Tracy Morgan on '30 Rock' is really great. I love Tracy. He's wonderful. Well, until his fish tank caught fire - his apartment burned up and flooded my apartment. We live in the same building, but I'm eight floors below him and we had to evacuate.
I let go of the notion of wanting someone to ignore the way I look in order to find me attractive, because really, what kind of relationship would that be? One where someone's only attracted to you because they're ignoring a fundamental part of you? No thanks.
I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying, 'How To Be Happy, by Stephen Fry: Guaranteed Success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say, 'Stop feeling sorry for yourself--and you will be happy.'
People tend to treat people with disabilities sort of like they're aliens from another planet. It doesn't come from a bad place; it comes from a place of, 'I have no idea what this disability entails, and I don't want to offend anyone or make them feel awful.'
We need a plague. It's gotta happen. And don't worry, it's only gonna kill the weak. Seriously. Put on a sweater, take some vitamins, you're gonna be fine! We gotta let mother nature do her thing, man. She keeps trying to help us out and we won't let her do it.
It's like before my wife and I moved. Our house was full of boxes and there was a U-Haul truck in our driveway. My friend comes over and says Hey, you moving? Nope. We just pack our stuff up once or twice a week to see how many boxes it takes. Here's your sign.
Last week John McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. This week, he said it's the worst crisis since World War II. So he suspended his campaign, unless you count doing interviews, airing attack ads, sending out surrogates on TV to attack Obama.
I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.
When no one knows you, and you're just trying to break into stuff, it's so good because you can write whatever you want and just say it; it's just between you and the audience. There's no process or worrying about anyone else interfering with what you're doing.
You know, even when the material wasn't so good, I've gotten to work with the greats, and I've always given it my best shot. I'm satisfied with my work. I could stop tomorrow, and if Bright Young Things was my last role, I could say I tidied it up with dignity.
I believe that at the moment of death, that the soul is released in a molecular form, that actually goes into the - the fabric of the universe, the structure of hydrogen and nitrogen and oxygen because we're electrically - we're galvanic, we're electrochemical.
It's a horrible economy but I'm trying to do my part. I just bought a new shower curtain it has all the presidents on it. Do you know how hard it is to masturbate with all the presidents staring at you? And when the water hits them it looks like they're crying.
I've come to the possible conclusion that being a comedic writer/director is like running track. You do it for a certain amount of time and then you have to stop. Or you at least have to accept that you're not going to be at the top of your game. And that's OK.
When I first heard the term 'training bra,' I was freaked out. I was pretty young and I said, 'Did you just say training bra? They're training their chests? I had no idea.' See some lady, her boobs are everywhere. 'What's her deal?' Those are untrained titties.
I was very stale at Fox. Much of it was my own fault. I was lazy and didn't fight for things I wanted to do at other times. Most of my stuff consisted of setup/punchline jokes to the camera - a very old-school approach. I was part of the establishment, I guess.
In addition to listening to the audience's laugh, you want to listen to their silence. Is it bored or interested silence? The silence is quieter and filled with energy when they're interested. You can hear a pin drop. When they're bored, you can always hear it.
I don't know if I have a 'Greatest Album Ever.' I really liked 'The Blueprint' by Jay-Z. The production on that album was really great. 'All I Need' was the first song I used for walk-on music in 2002 for my second time ever on stage, so that means a lot to me.
In a new issue of Esquire magazine, they revealed that before he was married to Teresa Heinz, Senator John Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild, Michelle Phillips, Catherine Oxenberg and Dana Delany. Finally a Democratic presidential candidate with good taste in women.
I guess we didn't even officially apologize. Jesse Jackson called on the United States to officially apologize to the Chinese. Jesse said, 'An apology is not a sign of weakness.' And as President Clinton has taught us, an apology isn't even a sign you're sorry.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has been hospitalized. I believe he is suffering from homophobia. No, actually, it was just gallstones, but when they gave him the hospital gown that opens in the back, he refused to wear it, he thought it was a gay wedding dress.
As an individual, as a household, you can't spend more money than you're bringing in. You can do it for a little while, but you end up going broke and you end up losing everything you have. That is the path that we're on as a country, and it scares me to death.
Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
I'm really not thick-skinned - my wife will tell you that I take sunsets personally - but I know that I've got the belly for whatever comes down the pike. I think it's tenacity. You've been there before, and you just have to recall, 'How did I handle that one?'
I liked the idea that my character was not gonna be the typical dumb guy that I play, typically. I also loved the fact that it was dealing with kind of adult-extended adolescence, which I think is always interesting - a bunch of people that don't wanna grow up.
Wouldn't it have been weird to go to high school with the Pope? You know, somebody did, someone's sitting at home, watching TV in Poland, they see the Pope, they think, "That guy was a jerk! He was so mean to me and now he's Pope? I got a swirly from the Pope!"
Now I tell my mom, I go, 'Mom, you know when I was a kid and you told me to turn off the television and go outside and play?' I'd be like, 'You literally were hurting my career when you did that. You literally stopped me from doing now, what I do for a living.'
I think we get stuck in routines so easily that when an absurd moment in life seems to be there for no reason, it wakes you up out of your everyday pattern. You pull back and look at life a little bit wider because of that one weird thing you weren't expecting.
The feeling of being an outsider was a big part of my childhood. I think that helps comedians. That feeling of being an outsider. That desire for a perspective that's all your own. The idea for me to make stuff myself with my own meaning came from that as well.
The reason I'm in this business, I assume all performers are -- it's Look at me, Ma! It's acceptance, you know -- Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma. And if your mother watches, you'll show off till you're exhausted; but if your mother goes, Ptshew!
No matter what these terrorists do, I refuse to be terrorized. All this requires is just a few alterations in our day to day lives. For example, my first instinct when I receive an envelope full of white powder... is to snort it! I just won't do that this time!
I helped deliver one of my best friend's children. I just was so amazed by my friend, because she was not just a woman, she was not just a mother. At that moment she was creation; she was life; she was God. And as I looked in her eyes, BOOM! Her pussy exploded.
Something about John Cleese was always very unsettled, I felt. There was always something else he wanted to do. He seemed constantly driven by this sense that there was a nirvana somewhere; some unique place where mind, body and soul would be utterly satisfied.
Every now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie.
I`ve not really been angling to be a comedian. I knew comics and I loved them and I loved being funny, but I didn't understand the whole concept of becoming one. My first couple of times on stage, I was like, "This is what I'm doing for sure." I was so excited.
I try to write every day. Sometimes the things come out well, and sometimes they don't. When they come out well you think, Wow, I must be really great; and when they come out poorly, you think you must be terrible, but the truth is that's how any process works.
The act of seeing any film generally is you knowing more than the characters, even if its the classic Hitchcock shot of two people talking and a bomb being under the table. Part of the pleasure of it is seeing where people go wrong, and the irony of situations.
I flew out here on Southwest Airlines. Southwest has a plane that's painted like Shamu the whale from Sea World. Yeah, that'll be easy to find if that went down in the ocean. That'll be nice, when you're trying to get out and a real whale's humping your window.
Ambiguity around ambiguity is forgivable in an unpublished poet and expected of an arts student on the pull: for a professional comedian demoting himself to the role of 'thinker', with stadiums full of young people hanging on his every word, it won't really do.
I’m very curious in regards to "The Hateful Eight" specifically about the blocking of the movie. Because in comedies, we don’t block. We basically like have to position the actors’ bodies in the way that is most conducive to filming both of them simultaneously.
My father was and is a great father. My father always wanted to do stand-up. He wanted to be an actor. But instead he did two jobs. He did customer service at a hospital and he worked as a waiter at night. He pretty much sacrificed everything for his daughters.