“I’ll get laughs in the places I don’t want them and that makes me realize the direction I want to go in. I don’t mean to get too deep into comedy here.”

Lily Tomlin…I used to watch reruns of Laugh-In and she was always my favorite part. She’s this very unique talent and the way she does things has been a very big influence on me.

The alphabet was invented in Iraq, so it’s a cool place.

The Middle East is gorgeous, but again, politically, I would not want to go there.

Sometimes you’re not getting the laughs you want or at the place you want but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. It means you haven’t explored it enough.

The thing is that where I want to go isn’t necessarily tied to what’s going on there politically, but I think Vietnam is a really beautiful country. I think Thailand is also really beautiful.

[Harold Pinter] is a British playwright and is one of my favorite writers. Harold was very obsessed with when memory becomes mythology, that at some point you change your memory to fit who you believe you are.

I can’t do Christopher Walken impressions anymore, thanks [Barack] Obama.

Being around Lily Tomlin has been great, how she treats people, how she handles herself, how she goes about interpreting her character or deciding how the comedy should work.

There’s a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.

Anyone who buys a ticket can just go in there, and I don’t like everyone, so I always see concerts as like, I’m going to get punched, I’m going to get elbowed, I’m going to get stepped on, get spilled on, someone’s going to hit me with their body odor or something.

I think Batman Returns is right for riffs. I love it but it’s the ultimate Tim Burton movie. There is so much that happens that’s crazy and there are a ton of things to riff.

I just got diagnosed with tendonitis which is such an insulting diagnosis. Just point to my shoulder and say “old.”

Every laugh is not equal. They come from different places. That’s sort of the challenge I go towards, making sure the laughs are for the reasons I want. It becomes a back and forth dance with the audience.

Sometimes I have young comics that ask me, “What should I do when I meet an agent or a manager and they ask me stuff?” And I say, “Well, they always usually ask, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, 15 years?’ And it’s good to have an answer for that.”

The audience is not your boss. They are your collaborators and when you collaborate with someone you don’t have to listen to everything they think or say.

If you’re driving down the street, you keep the neck forward. So that way you can clear out the lanes.

A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it’s really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it’s great.

I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints – the sinners are much more fun.

I have a feeling I’m going to wake up one day and say ‘I can’t do dirty stuff anymore, I want to go all clean.’ I’ll do clean stuff too, I like to entertain people. Then they egged me on; we shot it at The Laugh Factory.

I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.

I love watching people get hit in the crotch. But only if they get back up. If their teeth are bleeding, if they’re really hurt, if an ambulance has to come, I’m not laughing.

I don’t do politics. I just like to laugh.

The only time I get sick of making people laugh is when I’m in a non-writing-joke mode, and I just can’t seem to come up with anything new that’s funny. That’s a tough place to be as a comedian.

If somebody makes me laugh, I’m his slave for life.