Top 62 Quotes & Sayings by Colin Quinn
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American comedian Colin Quinn.
Last updated on April 17, 2025.
I'm quietly becoming New York's premiere actor. People don't understand. They have me pigeon-holed as a comedian.
I get the impression the English kings were witty, for some reason. I feel like all you had was your wit.
A weird sort of awareness set in, like, 'Wow. My standup isn't just separate from everything else I do anymore.' With Twitter and Face book, everything is universal that everything everybody says gets seen.
The mistake that people make in stand-up is thinking they're profound or they're deep when there are so many people who have more worthwhile ways of phrasing things.
You can't make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.
I feel most empires fell when they started to act human, but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand, and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can't sustain it.
Twitter is one of those dangerous toys that if it gets in the hands of the wrong person you'll have the mind of a 12-year-old masquerading as an adult.
I always wanted to write as much as perform.
I was a class clown.
I think people tend to feel odd when I do my act. Unless you are an ironic person, it's not a good place for you to be.
You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.
That's the beauty of being a comedian - it's the one job you're allowed to do that. We're lucky. We're really lucky.
Everybody says before reviews come out, 'Oh, reviews don't matter,' just in case they're bad; everyone want to brace themselves.
With comedians, you have that understanding that we're trying to get laughs.
I'm always working on stuff. But they never materialize. I'm always working on movies and TV shows.
My name has zero value.
If I had to give up everything else and keep just one aspect of the job, I'd have to keep writing because I love it. Yes, I enjoy performing, too. But I couldn't give up writing material.
You know, the funny thing about Lorne and that show is that, you can go over one million things, but in a business of bean counters, he still likes to laugh at small things and creates a show around it.
The thing that drives me crazy is when comics say 'I have low self-esteem.' No you don't. You're standing on stage asking people to pay. You don't play an instrument. You want people to pay to hear what's in your mind. You don't have low self-esteem. You might have other problems.
I'm just another guy who thinks he's smarter than he is, in a long line of them.
Those early days of comedy are when you get addicted to it.
I don't know any comedian who tailors his act to his audience. Maybe people say they do, but I can't even imagine them.
When I look back now I realize I was such an obnoxious kid but, you know, I went to schools like you, like a public school in New York so compared to the anarchy that was going on there, they really wouldn't - I wasn't like a bad kid. I saw people come in and punch the teachers.
For the most part, comedians are pretty friendly with each other. They always say they badmouth each other, but most of the time, they're friends. We're the only ones that can really stand our type of humor.
I write all the time - I write poetry, I love to write.
It was tumultuous, it was crazy, but I would not trade it for anything.
People's - most people's job is talking about the future or like money not even in the present tense. It's not even paper.
Everybody's got a different sense of humor. It's just different styles.
I like guy stuff.
I think if you try to tailor your act to anybody, you end up with an act that doesn't work anyway.
Everybody's funny in different ways.
Marie Antoinette was funny, I'm sure she was just misinterpreted. You know the 'Let them eat cake' line. She seems like she was kind of funny, like a Chelsea Handler or Kathy Griffin type.
You can't make money on Broadway. You make nothing. You maybe make like $1,350 a week after you pay out all the producers.
I'm not a big method actor. I'm much more superficial.
The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either.
Stand-up is live, so I'm used to being live for most of my career. It's interesting.
I've been to Japan, I've been to China, I've been to Africa, I've been to the Middle East, I've been to Europe a little bit. I've never been to South America.
I think everyone should own six guns, even though I don't own any.
I would say most comedians have a very cynical worldview of the way the world can work. It's almost like if you didn't, you couldn't be a comedian.
So instead of talking about theoretical ways of ending the war and violence, I say that we have to get rid of the individual asholes in each office and situation.
I think Helen of Troy must have been pretty hot. She got two countries going crazy for 10 years over her.
He is very dry but also very funny... I think people tend to feel odd when I do my act. Unless you are an ironic person, it's not a good place for you to be.
I love people, I love studying people more than history. So whatever situation I see, then I look at, what were the people like, more than history itself.
Humanity is a crazy contradiction. I accept us for who we are. We're not that great. Every time we take a step forward we go back to the same primitive behavior. We're meant to be this way. It's not our fault, it's just who we are.
My stand-up act? I combine the fact that the world is a violent place with the fact that each person is responsible for the situation they are in.
The only people who like to live alone more than comics are priests.
I think I identify more with the smart guy, but most people might take umbrage at that. I like to think of myself as a real thinker, but I suppose people might beg to differ.
New York Stat agreed to pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed three decades ago by inmates swept up in the bloody 1971 revolt at Attica prison. The settlement will be paid in the form of chocolate bars and packs of Newports that can be picked up in the commissary.
A weird sort of awareness set in, like, 'Wow. My stand-up isn't just separate from everything else I do anymore.' With Twitter and Face book, everything is universal that everything everybody says gets seen.
I know nowadays the common wisdom is to celebrate diversity as long as you don't point out that people are different.
What I love about comedians is their instinct is always to go against the grain. Their whole existence is pointing out the elephant in the room. Already you can see audiences are pushing back, but we're the ones who really can take it more than anybody.
The earth is a used Kleenex on the universe's nightstand.
People say history was written by the winners. No, it wasn't. It was written by the bullies.
I write all the time - I write poetry, I love to write
You can’t make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.
The Senate was holding hearings on deceptive sweepstakes practices. These companies target the elderly, making them think they're going to get a bunch of money, when in reality they never see any of it. The most popular of these scams is called Social Security.
I used to love the election season'cause it's kind of fun. Everyone makes a big sport out of it with all these different news stories and everything. I like it better now that everybody knows all the candidates from the past 15 years. But it does get really ugly. It's ugly and it's pugilist.
People say history is boring, and that is true because people are boring. We haven't changed since time began. We're still the same.
Well... you know, I would wake up with a terrible hangover in a jail somewhere and worst part was that I would not know why I was there.
It’s sad. Marxism didn’t work. Communism didn’t work. Capitalism doesn’t work. Nothing works. Even democracy doesn’t work. Democracy-the greatest form of government and we have two choices for who’s our leader. In fascism you only have one choice. That’s great. We have one more choice than the worst form of government.
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