A Quote by George Carlin

I don't like the phrase shock value. Surprise is essential in comedy, and if people are shocked by what I consider merely surprising, then that's their shock. But there is no joke without surprise.

George Carlin

Quote Topics

Comedy Consider Essential Joke Like Merely People Phrase Shock Shock Value Shocked Surprise Surprising Then Value Without

Quote Author

George Carlin
American - Comedian
May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008

Now, some people do this for shock value. Shock is just another uptown word for surprise. Granted it has a different quality to it, but a joke is about surprising someone. I'm a great believer in context. You can joke about anything. I do like finding out where the line is drawn, deliberately crossing it and bringing some of them with me across the line, and having them be happy that I did.

George Carlin

Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock. It's surprise that makes the joke.

George Carlin

I think of shock as kind of an uptown form of surprise. Comedy is filled with surprise, so when I cross a line... I like to find out where the line might be and then cross it deliberately, and then make the audience happy about crossing the line with me.

George Carlin

It isn't enough to shock. It's easy to shock. Real surprise is what I'm after.

John Waters

If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn't funny. That's what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do; try to be shocking and dirty. They aren't really. It isn't enough to shock. It's easy to shock. Real surprise is what I'm after. Those early movies, we had drugs, which you weren't supposed to show. You weren't supposed to shoot up. We would make fun of hippies. I think that we were punk before there was punk.

John Waters

I do like to shock and surprise people. When it's all in good fun, of course.

Ruth Warrick

I think it's part of the responsibility of an artist to shock, to upset, to make people think differently, and to surprise people. And that's where the good humor is, if there's a surprise and there's something unexpected. Something that's not normal, not in the realm of general living expectations.

Bill Plympton

I think that sense of surprise, that you don't know where something is going, or what's going to happen, even as you write, that you're making it up as you go along - that's important to me. It's not a question of shock or surprise in a gimmicky way. It's that as you read, you become more deeply into something and into what happens, and become more involved and engaged, you're learning something or you're appreciating something or seeing something differently - that's what's surprising.

Lynne Tillman

The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

Ricky Gervais

I was shocked to my marrow the very first time I heard the Church is saying a man can marry a man. What? It is from that shock, that surprise, how is that possible? Is it a kind of experiment or something? They are sick or tired of normal heterosexual relationships? How could that be?

Peter Akinola

In order to produce learned fear, you take a neutral stimulus like a tone, and you pair it with an electrical shock. Tone, shock. Tone, shock. So the animal learns that the tone is bad news. But you can also do the opposite - shock it at other times, but never when the tone comes on.

Eric Kandel

History , as it comes into our daily lives, is charged with surprise and shock.

Robert Heilbroner

My kind [vampires] does not surprise easily," he said. "You surprised me, this morning. I have thus used up my full quota of shock and consternation for some interval." I stared at him. "You made a *joke*." "I have heard this kind of thing may happen.

Robin McKinley

Mathematics - this may surprise or shock some - is never deductive in creation.

Paul Halmos

The idea of surprise is part of what makes something funny, or what gets a reaction. At least when I'm an audience member, after you hear a joke so many times it's not as funny because it loses its surprise or its twist. So I think funny has to do with surprise.