The joke of our time is the suicide of intention.
I don't go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it's contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.
Any comic is a very good actor. Look at Don Rickles. He is saying the same joke every night for 20 years and making it look like he just thought of it.
I joke that we're not dissimilar to a rock band in the '70s.
Some people, they just don't get a joke.
The why is what makes journalism an adult game. The why is what makes policy coherent and useful. The why is what transforms bureaucrats and foot soldiers and political leaders into viable instruments of rational and affirmative change. The why is everything and without it, the very suggestion of human progress becomes a cosmic joke.
My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
You've really got to start hitting the books because it's no joke out here.
Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.
It would be really hard to get serious about anything political today unless it was a joke.
Comedy is just to me, maybe it's a natural knack, if I can see where the joke is in the writing and I can see where the setup is and I can tell this is the way to make it.
I think I was born to be a clown. I just haven't figured out how to bring that side of myself into the world of filmmaking. It's much more comfortable for me to cry on a film set than it is to tell a joke.
You can read Kant by yourself, if you wanted to; but you must share a joke with someone else.
It's a cosmic joke that I'm a lesbian, because I understand men so well but women are a complete mystery to me.
I'm known for fashion photographs, but fashion photographs were mostly a joke for me. In 'Vogue,' girls were playing at being duchesses, but they were actually from Flatbush, Brooklyn. They would play duchesses, and I would play Cecil Beaton.
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?
The joke in our family is that we can cry reading the phone book.
Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
Most people, when they hear the disease name, it's all they know about it. It sounds so mild. When I first was sick, for the first 10 years or so, I was dismissed. I was ridiculed and told I was lazy. It was a joke.
My joke used to be about my father and Peter Boyle: that anything you see Peter Boyle do on TV, my father has done in real life without pants on.
If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke, then you don't have a regime.
I remember when I was in college, I used to watch Julia Child's cooking show during dinner and joke with my roommates about becoming a TV chef.
I never told a joke in my life.
He who does not understand a joke, he does not understand Danish.
I'm a bit of a worrier, to an extreme. I'll crack a joke, then worry if I've offended someone - even when they're laughing. I have a guilt complex, always worrying.
Being on 'The Office' prepared me for drama. Comedy got me ready, but once you get down to it, they're two sides of the same thing. I mean, the delivery has to be different - in drama, there's more time to breathe, and comedy's all about hitting the joke.
Every sexy joke of long ago, every flirtation, is being recalled by some women and revised and re-evaluated as sexual harassment. Frivolous accusations reduce, if not eliminate, not only communication between men and women but any kind of playfulness and banter... Where has the laughter gone?
The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.
My life motto is basically to lower your standards and expectations so you're never disappointed and never put any trust in anything, and I try to prepare for the day that I wake up, and everyone I know is like, 'LOL JK best long-running practical joke ever', so I've never really let myself freak out or get too excited about anything.
As a director, you can't stop a guy if he thinks something's hysterical, because if you do, then he'll get depressed because he thinks he didn't come up with a good joke. So if a guy's going on some run and it's killing him, and he thinks it's hilarious, you gotta do enough so that he thinks you can use it in the movie.
The old joke in my family is that the last person who isn't from New York was coming from Russia.
Some people know that they are so adorable looking, all they have to do is smile and dress up and they get plenty from that. Then there are some of us who, early on, see that that doesn't work. So we joke about it.
My specialty at 'SNL' was doing triage. There was always a great need for someone to say, 'Make this funnier. Give me an ending for this. What's a better big laugh for this towards the end? What's a better physical joke in this?' And I just really, over time, honed that specific thing so well.
