Top 230 Comedians Quotes

I love mixing with comedians when I’m working with them, but when I’m not I don’t feel the need to hang around with them.

I always think all the other comedians in New York hate me – I’m just convinced that they all dislike me – when, generally, I think I’m a pretty well-respected guy.

When I did ‘Bremner, Bird and Fortune’ I think it was accepted that comedians can contest the arguments just as well as journalists.

I definitely relate so much to a lot of women in comedy, but I don’t love segregating the genders. I’m just as influenced by male comedians as I am female comedians.

I can wax boringly about the role of comedy in mitigating pain. For so many comedians, comedy comes out of personal despair. I’m not a very despairing person myself, but I do fear despair and the death of loved ones.

When I see a good singer, I get teary-eyed. Part of it is jealousy because all comedians are frustrated rock stars. That’s a fact.

We judge people based on their clothes, social class, and, dare I say, ethnicity. Our comedians make light of these stereotypes regularly, and we laugh at their accuracy.

I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.

A lot of my family members were performers, and my cousins are comedians and actresses. From a very young age, movies were really important. They were given a lot of value.

Podcasts feature comedians being as funny as they can be in a non-censored situation. It’s really akin to standup in a way. When you go see a comedian in standup, that is the most pure, unadulterated form of their art.

I’ve been pitching a show of five female stand-up comedians through the generations, from Phyllis Diller to Amy Schumer, so when I got an e-mail asking me if I would participate in the Women in Comedy Festival, I was thrilled.

Many comedians have a dark side that lets them take a negative thing and turn it funny.

There are comedians who focus on everything that is external. They focus on politics and the news, what’s going on in that city and that night.

I sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that’s how people find their favorite bands and comedians.

I spend much of my free time listening to podcasts of American comedians talking to each other.

It’s always impressive when talented comedians are easy laughers or generous with their laughs.

One of the things I’ve found about SpongeBob’s movement style is that, in addition to being animated and sort of stretching and squeezing, he’s really based on the classic silent comedians, physical comedians.

I used to devour a lot of stand-up comedy in my cousin’s basement. He had cable and I didn’t, so I went there and saw all the comedians.

All the people I looked up to – Roseanne, Tim Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld – were stand-up comedians who used humor to get TV shows. I’m on TV now, and I’m working towards getting my own show.

Not saying that we are realer than most people, but because Chi is so segregated, first of all, we have to be diverse comedians and be able to make a lot of different people laugh. And Chicago comics, we’re OK with who we are in our truth. That stems from Bernie Mac and a lot of other greats who came before me.

A lot of comedians, when they have a bad gig, will blame everything but themselves. They’ll blame the crowd, or the room was wrong, it had a weird vibe, or the promoter promoted a weird atmosphere.

When the cricket is serious and it’s a really important time in the middle we focus on that but obviously when it isn’t there is a lot of time to chat and we can use that as time to bring the comedians in a bit more. We get the balance right between getting the calling of the cricket right but having some fun as well.

I dropped out of school when I was 14 and I was hanging out with comedians in their thirties. I moved out of home and had some real lows.

I don’t think comedians are better travellers but they are communicators and storytellers.

When a lot of people are distrusting the news they watch, comedians are stepping up talking about things that most people are too afraid to talk about, shining light on problems nobody else will admit, whether it’s Samantha Bee or John Oliver or Trevor Noah.

As far as I can tell, comedians are pretty serious people, and that’s why they make fun of things all of the time.

Comedians have to entertain the audience within a stipulated time. It is not possible to explain what we intend to convey in a detailed manner. This can only be done in films where comedians are the protagonists.

You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24.

Every time I’ve done comedy in, like, traditional comedy clubs, there’s always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they’re just, you know, doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing, like, very kind of base sex humor a lot, and stuff like that.

Something I always admire, especially in female comedians, is that they’re willing to make themselves look terrible.

My favorite comedians are basically themselves onstage.

I read in the ‘Daily Mail’ that I’m one of these ‘foul-mouthed comedians.’ But I’m much cleaner than the people they like. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to think that a 70-year-old – particularly someone like Alan Bennett – would like it, because they’ve seen a lot of stuff.

I am on Facebook, but it’s mainly for friends and family, so it’s not my real name. But I am on Twitter a lot. I resisted it for so long, but I love it because I get to connect with people I look up to – actors, comedians, and singers.

I know comedians who go on weird day trips in order to have random experiences they can talk about. They’ll go on their own to Thorpe Park waiting for something hilarious to happen. That’s really sad.

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians – Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I’d go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I’d seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.

I think comedians have a function in society, which is to make fun of our icons.

The Internet has done nothing but good for comedy all around. Comedians no longer have to rely on TV execs and club owners deciding if they are funny or not.

I don’t consider myself a comedian, but you work with some comedians, and sometimes these guys are incredible on their feet – it’s just amazing – and that’s not what I do. But it’s always fun, and I don’t really care as long as the character is interesting.

The black comedians meeting? Oh yeah, we hold one every year at Eddie Murphy’s house.

You learn to laugh at yourself, and you also lean on comedy as a crutch to kind of take the edge off because comedians often are self-deprecating, and they cross lines that they shouldn’t. Stuff like that brings a smile to my face every once in a while when needed.

There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that’s because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they’re up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.

There’s a lot of theaters in New York. You can always go out and be around a lot of like-minded comedians.

Mimicry artistes and comedians are supposed to incorporate incidents around him in his acts in a satirical way. For that, he should be well aware about the things happening around him.

I think comedians see themselves as people among people.

Successful comedians are just as neurotic as I am.

Half of the great comedians I’ve had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn’t understand why they were funny to anybody.

It’s famous that comedians have a very dark personal state of mind. I think, in my case, it’s the same. The only way to get deep is to have a balance, or a counterbalance.

In New York I was taken to a restaurant where comedians gather. There were 14 who imitate me in their acts. They wanted me to give them pointers.

People think comedians don’t do drama. Comics are drama. And what is drama, as opposed to comedy? It’s all the same to me.

Obviously those who burn to be professional jesters mean that they want to be successful comedians. And those are always an elite, microscopic portion of the population. But oh, how they try.

Most actors can’t write. Most writers can’t act. Most comedians can’t act. I can do all three, so why wouldn’t I do that?

The comedians I liked were Bill Cosby and Steven Wright, like just always as a comedic actor. I always liked Gary Larson, who’s really funny for a cartoonist, obviously.

Everybody kind of looks to comedians and comedy for relief and a fresh breath about what is going on in the world.

As comedians, we work our whole lives hoping for a break.

The best comedians and the best rappers can make you laugh and can make you cry… I believe I’ve been blessed with that gift to make you do just that.

In 1987, I was in Edinburgh doing my first one-man show. I took part in a kickabout with some fellow comedians and tripped over my trousers and heard this cracking sound in my leg. A couple of days later I went into a coma and was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.

I’ve been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it’s pretty equal. I don’t know why that is. It’s been the same thing for a while. It’s hard for female comedians to stand out. That’s weird. That’s a shame.

The one thing that’s depressing as a comedian to realize is that rock stars get groupies, and comedians don’t.

When we filmed the premiere episode of ‘United Shades of America,’ it was like we were turning over a rock in the woods. The KKK was not part of the national conversation. They were really just a punchline for comedians when you needed to let the audience know something was really, really, really racist.

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don’t work that way. There was a temptation in the early ’70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

Sometimes, when comedians get success, they don’t do as much weird stuff as they normally do.

People, I think, are more interested in being offended than getting to the heart of a situation. And to go after comedians to me is so counterproductive, because comedy is kind of a medicine.

The comic I can now never enjoy again is Bill Cosby. He was truly one of the first comedians I got into.

People say, ‘Oh, you’re doing the job of journalists.’ I think it’s very important to note that we can’t do our job without journalists. Journalists can do their job without late-night comedians. They’d be just fine without us. But we, of course, use their work every day to build our pieces.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

Comedians still make fun of Bill’s out-of-control appetites, but with Hillary, the mockery is about how she lets nothing be out of control.

When it comes to black female comedians, it’s like, if you’re not overweight, are you funny? There’s rules, like, you can’t be skinny and pretty and funny. I’m all three, sorry to break it to you.

I try and avoid the big comics in Edinburgh. You can see them on tour. Edinburgh is all about seeing the smaller comedians.

Because I’m around comedians all the time, in my downtime I tend not to watch comedy. Something the whole family enjoys is ‘You’ve Been Framed!’ It satisfies all of us. It’s universal, and we all laugh a lot.

I have worked with a great many comedians as opposed to comics, although I have worked with comics as well, I make the distinction.

The thing about comedians is, we’re generally pretty smart. So, if we can be smart and funny, that is the victory.

I’m a big fan of comedians not having to apologize for anything. Nowadays it seems comedians are always apologizing for being funny.

All great comedians make me laugh, but people make me laugh more.

Christians have always been fodder for comedians who have tended to portray them as anoraks – slightly clammy, beatifically smiley dullards with barely a personality between them.

I don’t want to offend people and I don’t want to be mean, but social commentary and comedy for me are part and parcel. I think the greatest social activists are comedians.

It’s like cooks don’t watch cooking programmes – I suppose maybe comedians don’t watch comedy shows.

I grew up loving David Letterman and Pee-wee Herman, but as far as live performance comedy, all I knew were the Jerry Seinfeld-type comedians of the world, and that’s what I thought live performance comedy was all about.

I love comedians. They’re my community.

The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.

I am not a natural show-off. Some of the monster comedians are terrifyingly assured, and I don’t have that, and that’s held me back.

I grew up watching ‘Big Train,’ these collectives of comedians who knew each other, and as a comedy fan you knew who was going out, who were best friends.

The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer to smash a butterfly.

You know, actors say, ‘There are no bad roles, there are only bad actors.’ Well, comedians, because they’re also writers, believe that there are in fact bad roles.

Pakistan hasn’t been cast in the role of… interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians.

Comedy was never a scarcity in Kollywood. Comedians of great calibre have emerged from this land.

I’m labeled a comedic actor, which is awesome. But I love getting the occasional dramatic role, too. Some of your best dramatic actors are ultimately comedians.

No, I had not read any other comedian’s book. Not that I don’t enjoy other comedians; I’m just not a reader.

My heroes – people like Woody Allen – were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.

I think a lot of comedians make the best dramatic actresses because they have a facility. They’re very vulnerable. They’re very open, like clowns.

Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and comedians. You’d go in and Tom Jones might be singing, or Shirley Bassey or Engelbert Humperdinck.

For me, funny is funny, and what’s unfortunate is these comedians aren’t being allowed to operate in rooms for everybody and that everybody can laugh and say, ‘Okay, I find that person funny, and I don’t just have to find them funny because they look like me.’

Most comedians are borderline psychotic. It’s what makes their work interesting.

You can be good at comedy, which means you’ll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven’t had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.

Comedians period, in general, have demons, and myself included.

It’s really irritating. Even people who like my work sometimes come up to me and say, ‘I usually don’t like female comedians, but your material is great!’ It makes the job prospect more daunting. Funny is funny, you know?

It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing.

I am trying to work out what my taste is, comedy-wise. I look up to stand up comedians who appear to be telling the truth, but I don’t mind if they are lying.

We’ve all seen comedians look like they’re reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.

Comics and actors come from such a wide variety of backgrounds and there’s a theory that all comedians had tortured youths.

People ask me about my influences and I say all the comedians in the 1970s and Dave Allen was a massive influence and a very big influence on a lot of modern comics.

I guess ultimately a lot of comedians just wanna be taken seriously.

But I will say that most comedians are the saddest people I know. That is the biggest paradox to me.

Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they’re salacious and funny and self-reflective.

I love coming to New York. I think I’m going to come really often here. I need to – for the show, for the comedy. I want to do the shows here and have a beer and hang out with the comedians.

Having other comedians complimenting my work is the biggest accolade that I can get.

The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.

Bits are fake conversations comedians have because they are uncomfortable being vulnerable with other human beings in any way.

I don’t know why, but it seems to be a common story for actors and comedians to have a tendency to be bad students and have difficulty focusing on things.

I’m a comedian. Comedians are supposed to be jaded, cynical, angry people. But I’m not: I’m a silly, silly fun boy.

Canada has been a breeding ground for great comedic actors, sketch artists and stand-up comedians. We grew up with a different perspective on the world.

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

With comedians, you have that understanding that we’re trying to get laughs.

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.

After the comedy boom of the ’80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.

When I moved to New York, I was wide-eyed. I was nice to everyone, which comedians hate.

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.

Women don’t want to exchange places with men. Male chauvinists, science-fiction writers and comedians may favor that idea for its shock value, but psychologists say it is a fantasy based on ruling-class ego and guilt.

I certainly don’t think comedians are more depressive than any other walk of life. I have had clinical depression, as it happens. The stress of performing didn’t help, but it wasn’t about being a comedian in itself.

Blacks on prime-time TV are only portrayed as comedians – and often in no better a light than ‘Amos & Andy.’

For comedians, we’re all kind of tweeting our thoughts instead of spending time developing them. You can gauge how good a joke might be by how many times it gets retweeted, but it takes discipline to go back through the tweets and then develop jokes from them.

I love radio and have done a little bit for years – since ‘Workers’ Playtime’ in the 1950s. It’s also a good springboard for comedians.

That’s what all of us, as writers, actors and comedians, set out to do – shine a light on new perspectives.

I remember being captivated by Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard and wanting to do what they did. That generation of comedians was my main influence.

Trinity Taylor and Ginger Minj both went on one of these big roast tours where the comedians all make fun of each other and I wrote their sets for that. Sometimes I help Monet X Change punch up jokes for her show, ‘The X Change Rate.’ I don’t charge Monet because she’s my best friend.

I thought comedians were the funny guy in the common room, not understanding that the flaws in my personality were actually the funny things about me.

As comedians, we all get into that mode of thinking of the worst thing imaginable – but you usually have the ability to pull back before releasing it to the world.

When comedians get successful, the fans that they have aren’t the fans they would hang out with. I don’t have that problem.

At one point when I was very young, when I was first starting out, I thought, ‘Well, one day I’ll be able to put all the music away and become a real comedian.’ But then I realized there are amazing musical comedians out there, that musical comedy is probably something I’ll always want to pursue.

Stand-up comedians have a very important relationship to Twitter. For them, it’s a place to try out material.

Coming from an immigrant background, where a lot of parents don’t want their kids to be comedians, success was just showing my mom that I could make a living. I was like, if I can get my mom off my back, that was my success.

I think people have a misconception about comedians and performers. All that stuff is serious business.

I always think everyone else is funnier than me. I look at other comedians and I say, ‘I wish I was that good.’ People think I’m funny, and I say, ‘I’m not.’

Interesting-looking people have always been comedians, and it’s rare that someone who has the choice to model ends up being a comic. Except for maybe Whitney Cummings, but that’s about it. That’s why she’s special: because she can combine it.

I remember 9/11; we had ‘Comics Come Home’ about a month after those events. That night, even the comedians were concerned. Would the audience be ready to laugh? It was a release for everyone.

I would love to do a serious period drama. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you’ll find most comedians want to do more serious stuff, most musicians want to be comedians, and most serious actors want to be musicians.

Compared to politics, I think sports is funnier, because it’s inconsequential. And politics can be real important and all that. The more pointless something is, the funnier it is, you know? And the more grave or important things are… You know, some comedians can get this disease where they get serious all the time.

I was always interested in comedy, like when I was 5 years old. I watched ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘Benny Hill.’ I would always joke around with my sister. My mom was into comedy, too. She would go to the video store and get a couple of movies and some stand-up comedians’ tapes.

People love to make comedians out to be miserable, dark, twisted people. And I just – I think a lot of people struggle with depression and mental illness and have issues and problems within their family. The mailman has it. Your neighbor has it. It’s just that comedians have a microphone.

I feel like a lot of comedians do have that deep, dark thing. I have my stuff, but I don’t go to that dark place.

Whatever talent I had, I’m sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

We’re not scientific comedians, thinking like, ‘Things have moved on, we need to do this, we need to reflect the world in this way.’

Comedians who aren’t screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They’re expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

You are not any different. You can do anything you want. So many times, I’ve been asked what I think of women stand-ups. If you actually look around, there are so many female comedians starring in the biggest TV shows.

Normal people don’t become stand-up comedians.

A lot of people, especially comedians, just feel like, ‘Oh, I can be charming and whatever, and have fun, and everybody is just going to like me.’ But you’ve got to work. There’s got to be a real work ethic that gets you better.

A lot of comedians get a bad rep once they have kids and that’s all they talk about, and people are like, ‘I don’t want to hear about your kids!’ I’m like, ‘Prepare yourselves. That’s all I’m going to talk about.’

I’m a comedian because I want people to like me. That’s really why all comedians are comedians.

Who knew Rob Lowe was funny? On ‘Parks and Rec,’ we’ve got some of the funniest comedy writers, some of the funniest comedians in the world working there. And if anything, we don’t just effuse to one another and be like, ‘Oh, Rob Lowe’s really funny,’ if he wasn’t.

The optimum frequency with which comedians should do a series is every year. I do one every three years. My audience is literally dying off.

I’m not a comedian, but I love the comedians who know when to get off the stage.

Even the best comedians aren’t always sure what is going to be funny, what is going to work. So that means they’re constantly and trying and failing in order to get there.

My favorite comedians are just presenting an argument, and they’re doing it in a funny way.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

You go to any Jay-Z concert, and he plays his hits. Comedians don’t have hits. You have to have a whole brand-new hour. You have no hits to rely on. It’s the hardest thing.

I spent seven years in clubs in England, Australia, etc. Not all comedians cross over to sell out in a theatre.

I like seeing comedians do stuff that I could never do.

Humor was a big part of my childhood. My family was full of comedians. We’d sit around the dinner table and try to one-up each other. It sometimes ended in tears, but usually in laughter.

I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can’t say that about their fans.

From the point of view of being in the public radar, comedians have less problems than other actors. Action movie stars like Stallone or Schwarzenegger usually attract the more aggressive fans.

Ever since I was a kid, I just loved those comedians on TV who would just have fun with the language.

Professional comedians, surprisingly, have a lack of humor. They’re insensitive to the insanity of our times.

It’s odd because some actors are very scared of comedians.

Comedians and impressionists used to be two different showbiz animals entirely, but now there’s no such thing as a comedian who doesn’t do impressions.

In terms of comedians, I loved, growing up, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Carol Burnett, all those people.

There are comedians that I like. I think a lot of it, you just figure out on your own. It’s definitely one of those things that you get good at by doing it a lot. But I like Jim Gaffigan. Patton Oswalt. Janeane Garofalo.

It’s our hope that MySpace Comedy, much like Music and Film before it, will serve as a launch pad for up-and-coming comedians and as an attraction for the biggest names in the industry.

Comedy is something that I’m definitely looking to get into. I had a little taste of it and I do intend on going to classes for it because I think it’s a different muscle, and it’s hard to find female comedians.

Comedians want to be rock legends for a day – that sounds fun to them.

I’m actually a big fan of Kathy Griffin because I think she’s really funny. I think she’s really self-deprecating, which is something I like to see in a comedian. I think those are really the best comedians: people who can make fun of themselves.

All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.

Comedians take a neat situation and turn it into a mess. And in my books I do the same thing, but it’s the other way around. I like to mess around with mess. A mess is only a mess because someone tells you it is.

Anyone you give a ton of money to is going to go slightly crazy. I don’t think comedians are particularly special in that regard; they just are better or more vocal in their expressions of their craziness.

Comedians don’t have a monopoly on suffering. But creative people are sometimes fortunate enough to be able to incorporate their most traumatic experiences into their art.

The young comedians always ask me, ‘What’s the secret for staying around?’ I tell them, ‘There is no secret – just stay around. Longevity is the most important thing.’

I think it’s important for comedians to do our little part. I don’t do it carelessly. I do it thoughtfully. I don’t try to just shock. I try to make a statement.

That’s why modern corporate movie making has become so laborious that comedians are kind of kicked out by 50.

People want their actors to do comedy, too. They don’t want any comedians next to the actor. They want one solo hero and want to see everything in him.

You could have a room full of the best comedians in the world and, for some reason, Chris Farley would take the cake. He was that good, just naturally. God’s gift.

I’ve never felt any sense of kinship with other comedians; they’ve always seemed too needy.

There are many styles of standup, but the comedians I like are people like Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. Because Richard Pryor told the truth. Chris Rock. I love Chris Rock. He’s funny, but he’s also poignant. He’s not there just to make people laugh; he’s there to make people wake up, too.

I don’t really get to see a lot of other comedians, because I work with the same people all the time. The guy I really like is Nick DiPaulo. I love Nick DiPaulo, but again, he’s a buddy of mine. But I liked him for a long time. I liked him before he was a buddy of mine.

Basically I try not to knock other comedians.

I love comedy, and I love listening to comedians talk.

‘Bunk’ is a comedy game show where, each week, three of my favorite comedians compete in a series of bizarre and meaningless challenges all for my entertainment. Ethan T. Berlin and Eric Bryant created ‘Bunk.’

People are born comedians.

I think that we’re in a really amazing time, where there are really a lot of really fantastic female actresses and comedians. I imagine there’s just a lot of opportunity for women to have powerful roles. Or it’s just that there’s more women writing TV. Women tend to maybe write strong women.

Why are we casting all these stand-up comedians to do ‘Breaking Bad,’ one of the most dramatic TV shows ever?

The first purpose of comedy is to make people laugh. Anything deeper is a bonus. Some comedians want to make people laugh and make them think about socially relevant issues, but comedy, by the very nature of the word, is to make people laugh. If people aren’t laughing, it’s not comedy. It’s as simple as that.

Comedians are obsessed with justice and the truth.

When I entered the industry in 1984, I was welcomed, no one pushed me away. I want the younger comedians to experience the same. They should feel wanted.

It often seems that, for whatever strange reasons, comedians, in addition to their formal performances, have more comic experiences in real life than other people do.

Before I started doing standup, I knew that I had what it takes to develop an act. I went down to clubs with not many people there, and I just worked on it, man. A lot of my friends are comedians, so that part had a lot of encouragement, even though the shows were very caveman-like.

Comedians, we’re just people who whine. But we happen to be funny when we whine.

For the most part, there’s not a ton of out and working trans comedians, or people who are visible.

It’s 103 comedians, or however many it is, and how would everyone tell it. It’s enough people of substance that it makes you think of the people who aren’t there that are alive.

We had one task where we had a yoga mat on a big hill and told them to get three yoga balls at the bottom of the hill onto the mat. We didn’t think that one of them would bring the yoga mat down to where the balls were, so that was a reminder that sometimes these comedians can be smarter than us.

When I hit the scene, there was Billy Connolly and Max Boyce. It was all mother-in-law and Irish jokes, and we broke the mould. Now there are thousands of comedians out there, and I don’t think I can be above it all.

I’m such a comedy fan that I just love laughing and so admire comedians who have brought me joy.

I’m happy to say that I’m a lesbian in the world. I know there are people who don’t want to be called women comedians, but I think it gives a path to the fact that we live in extremely patriarchal times.

I’m very adamant on social media about recommending comedians to people if they don’t know them. I think it’s so important to go see them.

Some comedians make a marvellous living doing material that is completely predictable, that reminds people of things that they already know or jokes that they are already familiar with.

My grandfather was running Hillcrest Country Club, and that’s where a whole group of Hollywood comedians hung out.

Harassment doesn’t just happen to ‘social observers’ and ‘comedians’ – women who express themselves publicly are reliably verbally attacked online and in person, not for their substance but for their form.

It is important to understand that there is no distinction between comedians and actors. All are actors.

It’s quite telling that the really big comedians – like John Bishop from Liverpool, Kevin Bridges from Glasgow, Peter Kay from Bolton – stand out with their strong regional accents.

Molly Shannon and I used to always talk about that we really felt strongly that we were comedic actors, that we weren’t comedians. You just played things real and the comedy came out of the context.

You shouldn’t listen to us at all if you’re looking for information. We don’t take ourselves seriously on any level; we’re just comedians.

Comedians are like pop bands. When you’re young, you have ruddy principles and don’t do old stuff because you don’t want to take away the purity of youth. But then as you get older, you look at The Rolling Stones and see what fun they have.

The demand for standup in the eighties was created by how easy it was to exploit ‘comedians’ and create very cheap television programming.

There is plenty of television. There are plenty of talk shows. There are plenty of comedians. But there is not plenty of worship of the true and living God.

I think, first of all, I don’t think people understand Ice Cube’s body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word ‘urban’ but – when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who’s launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?

I think sometimes comedians and entertainers and artists, sometimes they get onstage, and it’s all for what they want to do. I think you still need to do stuff for the audience. They’re the ones who are making it possible.

It’s important that comedians talk about difficult and dangerous subjects; you have to be very careful that you don’t just hear the subject heading and think, oh, this is bad, they shouldn’t be talking about that. You have to hear what’s being said.

As far as stand-ups go, I always loved Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Sinbad. Basically, I love black comedians because they’re the funniest. I wish I were a black comedian, actually.

The secret of comedy is don’t grow up. That’s why some comedians are a nightmare, because they never grow up.

Funny and sad are two sides of the same coin. I think that most comedians are able to tap into deep subject matter.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

I know a lot about Jewish comedians.

There are a lot of great disabled comedians.

It’s also that comedians don’t have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They’re writers who perform their own material. It’s more interesting. And they’re sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.

Aditi is a comedy superstar over in India. She’s only one of three female English-speaking comedians in India.

Stand-up comedians say that anyone in the audience can be funny, but people paid to see us because we’re just a little bit funnier. In the same way, I think anybody can play music – in fact, I think everyone has music in them, but some of us can do it a little better.

Performers like Tommy Cooper, who are always getting things wrong, are much more endearing than comedians who are sassy and smart.

The worse things are on the world stage, the more fodder there will always be for comedians. But at the end of the day, I trust in my abilities to make comedy and create art, with or without Donald Trump.

Comedians’ first ten minutes usually stay with them the first several years of their career. It’s their mission statement. Their disclaimer that lets people know who they are. Or were. It’s also a good time to make fun of your name if you have a funny or strange one.

I know a lot of sad people who aren’t comedians.

Honestly, it’s hard to learn about comedy from comedians. Comedy is not something that you necessarily learn or can imitate. You’re funny or you’re not, and you hope what you’re doing is funny.

At comedy festivals, we always get grouped with other musical comedians, so you can get to know them and see what everyone is doing. it’s really fun and awesome that we’re the only girls, because we can tackle issues that guys can’t sing about.

Before Twitter, if comedians wrote what they had for lunch on a Post-it and put it through your letterbox you wouldn’t find it acceptable – but now apparently it is on Twitter.

Comedians do movies and TV so that when they tour, they sell out. That’s the goal: To get popular enough so the place is packed.