Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I tend to have a lot of jokes about ex-girlfriends. They always ask me if they will be the subject of a joke, and I always tell them they won't. Unless they do something crazy. They all tend to, so you know where that goes. There are no closed doors. The 'art' will suffer.
When I played a club in Salt Lake City, I complained to the crowd about the low turnout. It's always good to berate the people who paid to see you because you're upset about the people who didn't show up. It's called misplaced anger, and without it, I wouldn't have an act.
A white person listens to my act and he laughs and he thinks, 'Yeah, that's the way I see it too.' Okay. He's white. I'm Negro. And we both see things the same way. That must mean that we are alike..... So I figure I'm doing as much for good race relations as the next guy.
New Rule: All Fox News employees must now refer to President Bush as "my liege". If they are going to treat President Bush like he's an infallible king, they need to start addressing him as if he was an infallible king. And they can do this by addressing him as "my liege".
This kind of mixing of ingredients happens all the time at fast-food places... You know when you order french fries and there's a rogue onion ring at the bottom. You know, at first you're alarmed but you eat it. It all comes from the same place! You just have to go for it.
If you're able to build from your falls you'll be unstoppable and damn near fearless. You see, every time you fall down and get back up, you add another piece of body armor to yourself. You learn what not to do, how to do better, and how to create comfort through practice.
Liberals should not overplay this weapons of mass destruction card, because you want me to tell you the truth? Most of us are not going to care if they don't find these weapons of mass destruction. It's enough for a lot of us to see those kids smiling on that street again.
The girls, like, in we'll say Hooters, have less clothing than the girls I worked with in those days. We thought it was wild when they just wore little bells and so forth. But today, in restaurants, some of the waitresses almost work in the nude, you know, to get business.
When I first came out, I thought, I want to walk like a real woman, I don't want to do mincing steps. And there was some girl I saw walking up Holloway Road in Islington who had this long languid walk and I thought, that's what I like, so I incorporated her walk into mine.
Monty Python paid me £20,000 to write, direct and assemble them - the cheapskates! I told them I'd never earned less in a year since leaving Cambridge. The first show sold out in 43 seconds and we ended up performing ten in total. We had no idea there would be such demand.
The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!
There's all this talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, you know where he is now? Visiting Mexico, which I think means that he is definitely going to run for governor. Arnold is smart. He's in Mexico campaigning with the very people who'll be living here by election time.
As you know President Bush has been traveling around the country trying to sell his new Social Security plan. He wants to take our retirement money and invest it in the stock market. He says nothing can go wrong. I'll mention that to Martha Stewart the next time I see her.
You know, I remember Career Day in high school. I remember plumbers and lawyers... I don't remember a booth where you could sign up to learn how to shoot chickens out of a cannon at the windshield of an airplane, 'cause there would have been a line at my school to do that!
I'm a big believer than a great bit is a great bit - if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they're beautiful things when they're done.
It really is great. Especially having people who we make fun every week come on and poke fun at themselves is really cool, I love that. No reality star has been mad at me yet for making fun of them. I'm sure that one day soon though, someone is going to take a swing at me.
My comedy isn't clean; it's just friendly. So I get asked to do a lot of clean shows. It's like, 'Oh, I have a clean vibe, but I say gross, weird stuff.' It's just, it's very gentle the way I say it. It's not upsetting or jarring to people, because I'm not very aggressive.
'Bunk' is better than 'Wheel of Fortune' because we have a wheel, just like them, but our wheel is purposeless. It doesn't do anything. It just spins for no reason. Which is nice because it frees our wheel up to really pursue its dream: becoming a professional paddlewheel.
Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They'll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is? The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil - Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture.
Everybody was telling me to sit my ass down. Everybody was telling me to get a real job. Everybody was asking me, "What are you doing? You're ruining your life. You're embarrassing your family." That's all I got. So you can't listen to that. You have to listen to yourself.
Sometimes the criticism is actually useful and constructive and actually informs what I do, but most of the time, it's sort of mindless, or they're receiving something on a different frequency than I was sending it. They're just not getting what I'm doing, and that's fine.
A dog came to my door, so I gave him a bone, the dog took the bone into the back yard and buried it. I'm going to go plant a tree there, with bones on it, then the dog will come back and say, "Shoot! It worked! I must distribute these bones equally for I have a green paw!"
Every time I walk by a spy shop, I think that I need to put some surveillance on somebody. Rick's been acting fishy! I need to buy a safe that looks like a Spray 'N Wash can. "Hey, Mitch, can I use the Spray 'N Wash?" "Yeah, if you want to spray your shirt with documents!"
You may not be able to help whom you are attracted to, but you can choose to whom you love and how. That is to say that love is a commitment that your heart and your mind make. It is an active and ever-evolving process, a conscious choice that takes effort and maintenance.
When we got quite big and were generating a lot of money through the arenas, we became quite a big thing, and a lot of managers appeared, and it became a big machine, like we were in Pink Floyd or something, and I don't think we were into that. We didn't really compromise.
I don't have any ego about it, but I find there's not a great work ethic in show business. A lot of people are in it to make money, and coming from stand-up, you have to work so hard because almost nothing works, and if you lose the audience for three minutes, you're dead.
Like, my feelings on religion are starting to morph. I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious.
I don't think immortality is necessarily the key to understanding the world. You have to be careful with what you think you're achieving. I'm all for science discovering amazing and fantastic things about our world, but I think the motivations behind it are slightly askew.
To be diagnosed was the hardest thing because I didn't know what they were talking about... And the doctor said, Don't worry, in three months you'll know. So I went about my business and then, one day, it jumped me. I couldn't get up... Your muscles trick you; they did me.
To this day, I feel a fierce warmth for women that have the same disregard for the social conventions of sexual protocol as I do. I love it when I meet a woman and her sexuality is dancing across her face, so it's apparent that all we need to do is nod and find a cupboard.
I do not, right now in this moment today, want to be married. After entertaining proposals, researching the cost of a wedding, and looking at friends who are married, I realized that if I do get married one day, I want it to be in the right situation with the right person.
I knew I just loved comedy, and I think it was my parents who initially brought up the notion of me trying to do stand-up. I think I actually tried writing jokes just at home, just kind of sitting around. But it seemed like a very real way to step into the world of comedy.
Why should I be depressed? I've got enough money. I've got a job. People like me. There is no to be depressed. That's at stupid as saying there is no reason to have asthma or there is no reason to have the measles. You know you've got it. It's there. It's not about reason.
I've never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind. Apart from the beauty of looks and figure, which I cannot claim to have, there's just a particular kind of ordinary-Joe quality that a film star needs to have.
It's very interesting, the joke comes first and then the wording comes within five seconds, maybe ten seconds. My thing is to get the joke across in as few words as possible. However, sometimes a word that's not really needed does help the rhythm of it. It's a gut feeling.
Anyone in the arts has had an experience of seeing someone who they related to doing something and thinking, 'I could do that.' If you have one generation where you force its hand a bit, then the next one fills in the gaps, because it's seen an example of what can be done.
I am honestly very intimidated when I meet new people and they expect me to be the onscreen Vir. On stage, I say a lot of things I might never say in real life; I am never the life of the party. People are quite surprised to see that I am more of a quiet artiste off stage.
I have a theory, which is that the idea of a roast is to go to this forbidden, uncomfortable, almost performance-art-level shock place, but because we're so regularly shocked and offended today, the idea of an hour and a half of unbridled negativity is just so unappealing.
I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution. OK, not the most popular idea ever expressed. Either that or you're all real high and agreeing with me in the only way you can right now. (Starts blinking)
Nowas you all know, this week, Pope Benedict told Vatican Radio—you know, Vatican Radio, playing the hits from the 8th century, 9th century and today—Benedict told them he was going to resign because the Church needs a fresh, young face, somewhere other than a priest's lap.
I love tweeting. I tweet every day. I stay in contact, I tell them what I'm doing. I've posted pictures of my books on there and they buy the books. It's a very good way to communicate with people, but I can't go to bed without tweeting something. I have to tweet something.
Onstage, you just have to tell the absolute truth about the character you are playing. You hope you communicate it, and you hope it comes back like a tennis ball. If you're listening to the sound of your own voice, nobody else is. The audience knows, and they freeze on you.
I was taking my dog out the other day and I met this chap who asked me where I was going. The dog is foaming at the mouth, so I explained that I was on my way to the vet to have it put down. He asked if it was mad, to which I replied that it wasn't exactly pleased about it.
I used to think that you could get to a level of success where the laws of the universe didn't apply. But they do. It's still life on life's terms, not on movie-star terms. I still have to work at relationships. I still have to work on my weight and some of my other demons.
When a Dalmatian sees a cow he must be like, 'What the hell happened to him? I am high right now. That dalmatian is fat and smeary.' When the cow sees the Dalmatian he must be like, 'He looks amazing. I am so out of shape, this is ridiculous. My tits are on the ground here.
Bear in mind the simple rule, X squared to the power of two minus five over the seven point eight three times nineteen is approximately equal to the cube root of MCC squared divided by X minus a quarter of a third percent. Keep that in mind, and you can't go very far wrong.
I think religion is very anti-man. I think it's a terrible distortion and exploitation of a very natural urge every human has - to be rejoined with the one somehow, to become a part of the universe. Once the high priests and the traders took over, we were lost as a species.
I guess the reasons against having more children always seem uninspiring and superficial. What exactly am I missing out on? Money? A few more hours of sleep? A more peaceful meal? More hair? These are nothing compared to what I get from these five monsters who rule my life.
I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show,' I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson. Having a British accent definitely gave me a sonic leg up on that because there is a faux authority to the British accent in and of itself.
When I look at my audience, I can tell better who's in the crowd and the kind of joke I shouldn't do. It's just complicated. I guess I sift through to make sure these jokes are a little different with not such a harsh edge to them. That's pretty much how I handle the crowd.