Comedy Quotes

The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you're improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we're improvising and I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun,' and you say, 'That's not a gun. It's your finger. You're pointing your finger at me,' our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun!' and you say, 'The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!' then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.

~ Tina Fey

A funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever. One is not meant to laugh. One stays quiet and marvels. Spontaneously witty talk is without question the most fascinating entertainment there is.

~ Diana Vreeland

The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then _add something of your own._ If I start a scene with 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah...' we're kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We're in hell.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'Yes, this can't be good for the wax figures.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'I told you we shouldn't have crawled into this dog's mouth,' now we're getting somewhere.

~ Tina Fey

Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.(p.115)

~ Malcolm Gladwell

The coding was anachronistic, kind of like bokeh in a renaissance painting.

~ Sorin Suciu

We can’t all be comedians, some people have to do the laughing.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Speak English at this table or I will fire you so fast you'll wind up standing at the airport wondering how you got from here to there without any goddamn pants on.

~ Mira Grant

Wrinkles was her big gray cat. Sierra named him Wrinkles because when he was a little baby he had a wrinkly face. He slept in Sierra's room, but not always on the bed. Mommy said that was 'cause Wrinkles had an attitude. Most cats had attitudes, actually.

~ Karen Kingsbury

HARV, can you help at all here?” I asked, spinning downward.“I am writing your obituary. Well, not so much writing it as updating it,” HARV told me.If I lived, I was going to kill HARV.

~ John Zakour

HARV appeared in front of me, arms crossed, head tilted. “You really should read your e-mails from Randy more carefully,” he lectured.“I skim them,” I protested.“Well, if you skimmed them more carefully you would know that prolonged exposure to stealth mode may lead to side effects.”“I can handle . . .”“Impotence.” HARV smiled.“Oh,” I said.“Randy hasn’t really tested it on humans. It’s extra tough to get volunteers for those types of experiments,” HARV said. “Though he has computer simulated it and the results tend to support this conclusion.”“Let’s try to limit our use of stealth mode from now on,” I said.

~ John Zakour

Walking into Nova Hollywood, I remembered why I didn’t come here more often. I like a good slice of cheese as much as the next guy, but this place would be too cheesy for a giant mutant rat who had been starving for a week.

~ John Zakour

My number one fear is heights. Well, not so much the heights but the falling from heights. Actually the falling isn’t that bad (I have a strong heart), it’s the sudden stops that are painful. Believe me — I experienced it once.

~ John Zakour

Thing is, I am not a big fan of hovers. I firmly believe that if man was meant to fly we’d have feathers, rubber bones, or better insurance coverage.

~ John Zakour

So, what you’re basically telling me is death is boring but no worse than hanging out with family.

~ John Zakour

People keep making excuses, that’s why everthing happens for a reason.

~ Roy Saputra

HECKLER: Say something funny!COMEDIAN: I don't do requests.

~ J. Ross Clara

98% of all comedians feel obliged to be funny when interviewed. Less than 2% succeed.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Make your life the greatest story ever told!

~ Marie Guillaume

Hey Circe, how come your horoscope predictions are never that a hot girl is gonna fall madly in love with me forever and ever?”“Uh, cause you're a dork Seth!” She taunted.“Oh yeah,” Seth said happily smiling at her. “That explains the devastating loneliness and constant abuse by alpha males…

~ Charlie Fey

My dad used to tell me that laughter was like a cough or a sneeze - the body's way of trying to expel something. But instead of some phlegm in your throat, or some dust up your nose, a laugh happened when something really true got into your brain. Something so true that your system just couldn't stand it.

~ J. Ross Clara

Comedians love people to point and laugh at them, even if they are not funny, naturists don't, no matter how funny they are.

~ Roy Station

If the shoe fits, buy another one just like it.

~ George Carlin

When I was in eighth grade, I used a self-timing camera to take nude pictures of myself in various stages of erection. I then exchanged my biology teacher’s slides with the images. The teacher, in a state of panic, kept rapidly pressing the ‘next’ button. It was like a pornographic flip-book. That was the last straw in a very heavy pile of straws. I was expelled, and I ended up transferring mid-year from boarding school to a public school near home.

~ Dani Alexander

I had one friend with same-sex orientation, and Dana hadn't spoken to me since I asked her to describe her honeymoon in graphic detail—and then made vibrator noises.

~ Dani Alexander

Your highness, when I said that you are like a stream of bat's piss, I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark

~ Graham Chapman

Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.

~ Steve Martin

Support your partner in their interests. You never know when batting practice, kung fu movie moves, or even a poker night might come in handy during a zombie infestation.

~ Jesse Petersen

Make requests, not demands. Please kill that zombie, honey, I'm out of bullets.

~ Jesse Petersen

I couldn't have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality.

~ Henry James

Build mutual friendships. Just be ready to end them when your friends start trying to eat you.

~ Jesse Petersen

Suddenly, however, the dastardly department of my personality presented two plans, one of which involved dynamite, mustache wax, some rope, and train tracks . . . which I rejected due to financial investment.

~ Laurie Notaro

I should have known that having end of the world sex wouldn't solve our problems. Though, it was pretty great and I highly recommend it.

~ Jesse Petersen

Because I'm not really certain she'd make the best travel partner through a zombie-infested city, he hissed. She gets confused by Scrabble.

~ Jesse Petersen

Now Vegas, while you were asleep your classmates and I were discussing time manipulation. What are your thoughts on the subject?”“Well,” Vegas turned to the class, his captive audience and smiled, “if you can manipulate time so this bell would hurry up and ring, I'd think it’s fabuloso.” The class snickered again, but not everyone since someone else had made a similar joke just several minutes prior. Naturally, Vegas hadn't been able to hear it over the sound of his own snoring.

~ Charlie Fey

The only thing which really seemed to pay off in life, if you went by Mary Pedersen's example, was sleeping with your superiors.

~ Jonas Eriksson

Lactose intolerant milk?! KISS, MY, DICK!

~ Lewis Black

Commercial comedy's often set up to feature an ironist makingdevastating sport of someone who's naive or sentimental or pretentious orpompous.

~ David Foster Wallace

What are you doing?” Nine Eleven asked, noticing Seth trying to look around him. He followed Seth's gaze. “Oh.”He turned back around and handed Seth a wry smile. “So what are you going to do about her, Seth? Create a love spell that will bend her to your will and make her your sex slave?”“Is that how you get dates?” Seth asked.

~ Charlie Fey

The old agility was still present and the passion was undeniable, but it was the wobbling of the gut, the puffing of the cheeks and the profuse sweating that lent the performance its true magic.

~ Jamie Holoran