A joke is a joke, and people put too much meaning behind it. They react to it in the wrong way. I mean, you can boo or laugh, and that's pretty much what you're supposed to do with jokes. You're not supposed to take it any further than that.
I keep on repeating something told to me by an American psychologist: "When you are making a joke about someone and you are the only one to laugh, it is not a joke. It is a joke only for yourself." If people are making a joke they have the right to laugh at me but I will ignore them. Ignoring doesn't mean that you don't understand. You understand it so much that you don't want to react.
I have become a giant fan of the testing process, especially with a comedy. I mean, they tell you what's funny. It's almost tailor-made for people who shoot the way we shoot, trying a million different options and versions of things. Because the audience doesn't laugh at a joke, we put in another joke. If they don't laugh at the next joke, we put in another joke. You just keep doing them and you can get the movie to the point where every joke is funny, if you have enough options in the can.
When I'm writing columns, it's - all I'm thinking about is jokes, joke, joke, joke, setup, punch line, joke, joke, joke. And I really don't care where it goes.
I take a lot of pride in managing to be funny without having a victim at the end of my joke. I laugh at a really dark joke as much as the next person, but my jokes, I feel, don't have to hurt anybody to be really funny.
There are certain jokes that indicate how mainstream a comic is. If you're talking about how the side effects of drugs that they advertise on TV are worse than the actual illness they're supposed to prevent, that's like the hackiest joke out there now. If you're still doing that joke, that usually is an indicator of being mainstream, in a bad way.
People try to put ownership on things: 'That's mine, that's my joke.' No such thing. Like if you tripped or stumbled and people go, 'Oh, that's Charlie Chaplin.' You know what I mean? You can't own a joke. You can be the guy that tells it the best, but you can't own a joke. Nowhere can you own a laugh.
I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do.
Woody Allen - nobody has been a better joke teller than him - and even in his great films, it's always coming out of the character. If you don't have that, jokes are just empty and I think that people rely too much on jokes.
The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.
Bettman is an asshole. A frikkin asshole. I think he's ruined the game of hockey. He's supposed to be impartial. He's supposed to speak for the good of the league, but in my opinion, he's strictly behind the owners. Those 1996 rule changes are a joke
I'd like to think I'm a little more memorable or specific now. People laugh at me in a way they wouldn't laugh at another comedian, rather than being like, "Okay, who's the next joke-slinger? Give me some jokes so I may laugh and go about my day!"
I'm like a bumper car. When I did an infomercial I was fodder for every TV comedy show. I couldn't get a job. People said I was a huge joke. I've been a joke so many times. I've been on my way out since I started, but I'm strong-willed. My mother is so much tougher than I am and my grandmother is so much tougher than my mother.
'Always speak the truth - think before you speak - and write it down afterwards.'
'I'm sure I didn't mean - ' Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.
'That's just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning - and a child's more important than a joke, I hope.
Twitter is a good medium to lean how to write jokes. It pushes you to write a better joke in that, on Twitter, the first joke about something has already happened. You need to think of the second joke and the third joke.
Humor has the tendency to be funny once. If I tell you a joke, we're going to have a big laugh. But the second time I tell the joke, it's going to be a bit strange, and the third time you're going to ask if there's something wrong with me. So I am very cautious with jokes, but there is a lightness in my work.