A Quote by Sarah Cooper
You know, as a comedian, that's what you do. You speak truth to power by making people laugh.
Related Quotes
A hero has to become a comedian to do a comic role but a comedian does not have to do anything. People laugh at him anyway. Even when I attend funerals, people look at my face and laugh.
I'm an entertainer first. But I do as a stand up comedian, the way for me to evolve is to make a difference, to make people laugh and learn and do something different. Because there's too many comedians out there just making people laugh. And anybody can do that.
Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.
I think the job of a comedian is to make people laugh, but also challenge them to laugh at things they didn't know they could until now.
The intention is to make people laugh, to make people happy. It's unselfish, it's in the service of others, and as a comedian you are making yourself vulnerable in order to make others happy. And it has a transformative power.
You know, a comedian's comedian is just that - it's a guy who's original and funny and can make comics laugh.
If people depend on me to be a man of truth, I have to prove again and again and again and again that I am a man of truth. It cannot be that on Monday I am a man of truth, on Tuesday I speak three-quarters truth, Wednesday I speak half-truth, on Thursday I speak one-quarter truth, on Friday I don't speak at all, and on Saturday I can't even think how to speak the truth.
My brother was a great audience, and if he liked the picture, he would laugh and laugh and laugh, and he would want to keep the picture. Making people laugh with an image I had created... what power that was!
I always knew I wanted to do comedy. I like making people laugh. I started out young just making my family laugh and trying to make kids laugh in school and getting into plays. I think it's the only thing I know how to do so hopefully it works out.
The world has wanted me to speak differently than I speak. You know, I speak like my mom; I speak like, you know, like the whitest white dude; I speak like a Def Comedy Jam comedian doing an impression of a white guy.
One of the flabby lines you hear sometimes is, 'Speak truth to power'. Power knows the truth. It's speaking the truth to yourself that's the challenge.
The role of the intellectual, so it is said, is to speak truth to power. Noam Chomsky has dismissed this pious tag on two grounds. For one thing, power knows the truth already; it is just busy trying to conceal it. For another, it is not those in power who need the truth, but those they oppress.
You're not going to be liked by everybody when you speak the truth. I don't speak the truth to put people down; I don't speak the truth to show disrespect.
I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.
A lot of thought goes into making people laugh. Comedy is never easy. Making people cry is easier than making them laugh.
I think you develop strong instincts when you're a comedian. You have to pay your bills by making people laugh every six seconds... or not. I had to do that for 22 years.
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