Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We're seeking out such grossness in human behavior and want such mindless entertainment. 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' and some of these other shows are more racist. Or '16 and Pregnant.' Getting rewarded for being pregnant when you're a teenager? Are you serious?
Actually, I think all addiction starts with soda. Every junkie did soda first. But no one counts that. Maybe they should. The soda connection is clear. Why isn't a presidential commission looking into this? Or at least some guys from the National Carbonation Council.
Sometimes I feel like I'm making a connection with a stranger, but then it turns out I'm not. Like, I was in a mall, and I saw this lady hitting her kid. So I went up to her, and I was like, "Yeah, get him!" She got all mad at me. I was like, "I'm on your side here."
At 90, I'm still working a couple of dates a month. My mind is very sharp on the stage, so why not? This may sound corny, but I do it because people - young and old - still come to see me, and they're very enthusiastic about my work. They treat me like the Godfather.
hard work is a misleading term. physical effort & long hours do not constitute hard work. hard work is when someone pays you to do something you'd rather not be doing. anytime you'd rather be doing something other than the thing you're doing...you're doing hard work.
Anger is a handy term and words are tricky, as we know. What one man perceives as anger, another person - in my case the deliverer of material - is, "Don't you see it, don't you see how badly you're doing?" It's like shaking a child - which you're not supposed to do.
A priest is sent to Alaska. A bishop goes up to visit one year later. The bishop asks, How do you like it up here? The priest says, If it wasn't for my Rosary, and 2 martinis a day, I'd be lost. Bishop, would you like a martini? Yes. Rosary, get the bishop a martini!
I have thoughts - obtrusive thoughts and rituals that have to - it's like a broken re - a skipping record. And if these thoughts or these triggers happen to me through maybe shaking a hand or just a thought or just - then I can't get past it and move on with my life.
Vice President Cheney is also on vacation. He's in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What better place for a guy who has had 4 heart attacks than a place with thin air, rugged hiking and all-beef dinners? Why don't they get some snow for him to shovel while he's out there, too?
People made a big deal out of the fact this is the first time a sitting president has done a late-night show. We tried to have other presidents on, but President Bush went to bed every night at 9:00. And President Clinton always seemed to have other late-night plans.
As we watched Judge Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, all of the commentators said the same thing: 'One of these people in the room is lying.' Do you believe that? You've got two lawyers and 14 senators in the room, and only one of them is lying?
I'm a really good driver. I've been driving since I was very small, and I do like driving fast. I remember the first time my dad taught me that when you go into a corner you change down then put your foot right down on the way out. I'm very competitive about driving.
I started doing little amateur nights at the comedy club that was right next to the restaurant that I waitressed in when I was in university. I was probably 22 years old. I didn't do it with any intention of making a career out of it; I had just always valued comedy.
I have a crazy amount of different jobs, so the way I manage that is to not do more than one at a time. It's like old computers that had small memory chips, they would do something called swapping, where they would fill the memory with one task, do it and get it out.
People are always fighting for attention with things now because there's so much content. Actually, if you don't tell people stuff - you just keep your mouth shut - you don't have to whisper it, you just don't yell. Take the bullhorn off your mouth and it's a secret.
My mom always does this thing where, the closer I get to home, the more she calls. 'Hey, listen, how's your plane? Did you land? Are you landing? Sweetie. Listen. We want to... ' The anxiety amps up exponentially as I get closer, and then I can't get out fast enough.
I mumble a lot when im off stage, so a lot of times when im with a friend i'll say something and he'll be like what, and i'll say it again and he'll be like what, and i'll say it again and he'll still be like what, so now he's got me yellin. Man that tree is far away
There's a lot of women out there, some of whom are my age who've never been married and some who have been married and would like to be married again but think their ship has sailed, and I'm like, 'Oh no, honey, let Miss Niecy show you it is never too late for love!'
Find something that you want to do when you're 60. Find your passion. Your passion, your work, whatever it is that you want to do. Find something that you would do, even if you didn't get paid. Whether it's an art or whether is something that you're passionate about.
I think doing something creative is the most important thing to me, and I think it's probably just good for the soul for anyone, whatever it is. You don't have to be a film director - you can do gardening or something - but I think everyone needs to create something.
Say I feel all sad and self-indulgent, then get stung by a wasp, my misery feels quite abstract and I long just to be in spiritual pain once more - 'damn you tiny assassin, clad in yellow and black, how I crave my former innocence where melancholy was my only trial'.
I've seen racism in my audiences. For example, I've seen people laugh at every other group, but then clam up when it comes to their community. You can't laugh at everyone else and then not laugh at yourself. You shouldn't be at my show if you can't laugh at yourself.
The sun shines directly on this great country, and it can be harvested, it's not owned by anybody. It's something the Jews and the Palestinians share and could work together to make the whole world a better place, not just this Middle East stuff, but the whole world.
If you like Harry Hill, you'd really like Tony Law. He's a Canadian comic who's done a few appearances on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and '8 out of 10 Cats.' Nobody else could do his stand-up; it's very idiosyncratic, very daft, very silly, but really well structured.
Is the modern social pattern of unending change and movement the cause of two modern diseases, insecurity and dissatisfaction? How lucky Thomas Hood was to be able to write, 'I remember, I remember the house where I was born.' I don't even know what mine looked like!
I saw a close friend of mine the other day. . . . He said, "Stephen, why haven't you called me?" I said, "I can't call everyone I want. My new phone has no five on it." He said, "How long have you had it?" I said, "I don't know . . . my calendar has no sevens on it."
I thought it would be a funny concept to publish a book about stand-up comedy with Faber, the poetry publisher, and to apply to stand-up the same sort of weight of annotation that you would to a classic work of literature, an epic poem. I thought that would be funny.
In particular, Stewart Lee and Tony Law, people who could have been really critical, were really supportive of me, and I'll never forget that, and I want to be that person, so you have to work really hard to repress your natural jealousies and be one of those people.
I did some pretty embarrassing modeling, like catalogs and QVC. I know there's probably a stereotype where all pretty girls think they're unattractive, but modeling is the worst thing for your self-esteem, because you're never pretty enough, you're never thin enough.
When you say, "there's no reason [to hit a woman]" that kills any examination as to how two people ended up at that place. When you say, "there's no reason," you cut out the build-up and you're just left with the act. How you gonna solve it if you don't figure it out?
There should be more on television that uplifts people and shows them how to better prepare themselves for earning a living. There still aren't enough people that say "this should not be." We just let it go. We need to raise a loud voice about our fellow human beings.
If you have no faith, you've lost your battle. You can't let things just happen. If you know right from wrong, and you know proof that certain things are true and people are telling you information to guide you and it's good solid information, than you should have it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald has an indespensible quote: 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at once and still retain the ability to function'. Or, as I like to call it, 'O.J. killed his wife, and the police are corrupt.'
As a comedian, I think we all look for those areas where the truth diverts from what people are saying. That's why politics is such a rich area for us, because politicians make promises, and they don't keep them, and when we point out the difference, we get the laugh.
You start realizing that maybe you're the one night a month that people have out, and they don't need to hear your political views or how dark you can get. They just want to laugh for an hour and go home. Once I wrapped my head around that, my act evolved accordingly.
I remember one time when all the nuns in my Catholic grade school got around in a semicircle, me and Mom in the middle, and they said, 'Mrs. Farley, the children at school are laughing at Christopher, not with him.' I thought, 'Who cares? As long as they're laughing.'
If you take 12 waters from the coconut - not the ones you buy in the store, although that's good - but the fresh coconuts, the little brown ones with the three eyes, if you take 12 of those within 24 hours, your blood will go back to the way it was when you were born.
Black folks tell their kids they have to be twice as good as a white person? Well, if I tell a child of mine that, or that they have to be careful - that this is what a cop would do if you do this - they think something is wrong with them. I tell them death is better.
Life is sacred? Who said so, God? Hey, if you read history you'll realize that God is one of the leading causes of death...has been for thousands of years. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, all taking turns killing each other because God told them it was a good idea.
In the early days I was on the road 45-50 weeks a year, driving from gig to gig 6-8 weeks in a row. Not everyone can do that. The show becomes the easy part. Tt's the life on the road that is the hardest... and you can't get any good at standup unless you do the road.
I saw something stupid in the paper today - a new alarm clock that makes no noise. It's for people who don't like loud noises. Instead, it slowly hits you with light and gets brighter and brighter until you wake up. I already have one of those... it's called a window.
Every day when everybody would have lunch I would do TM [Transcendental Meditation] and then I would eat while I was working because I had missed lunch but that is how I survived the 9 years [of Seinfeld], it was that 20 minutes in the middle of the day would save me.
Dogs want to be people. That's what their lives are about. They don't like being a dog. They're with people all the time, they want to graduate. My dog would sit there all day, he would watch me walk by, he would think to himself, "I could do that! He's not that good.
Well, that would be a title [the busiest guy in Hollywood] still reserved for Ryan Seacrest. I have one assistant; he has about nine. I don't have a food taster yet, I don't have a fluffer either. But, yes there are some days when I don't know if I am coming or going.
My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American.
Neck-down comedy was no longer valid after the 1980s alternative comedy revolution. Everything became about the cerebral. And with that came positive things - it helped get rid of some of the sexism and homophobia - but it also meant a lot of physical comedy was lost.
The kids say golf taught them this and that. I get it with the military: A guy joins the military because he needs discipline and has to find himself. But don't tell me, 'Golf helps you find yourself.' I've been playing my whole life, and I'm still looking for myself.
Dating is horrible, it's awful. I don't get it. It's like you're standing there: 'Hi. Do you want to have sex and later wish you hadn't?' It's horrible. And it's awkward at 42 because I don't have the body or the drive. I just sit in the car and hope somebody gets in.
What comics sacrifice and what lives they live - I know that most of their lives, their adult lives, they're sitting around or walking around with notebooks, writing things down. Usually they're fairly sensitive. Usually they're very bright. And that makes them poets.
As a woman of color you have little more permission to go deeper and question things because your identity, in a way, is a shield. But if you come at it from a minority status, my person, who I am, softens the blow of whatever it is that I'm saying, because I am that.