My daughter Fathima is a bigger comedian than me. She makes me laugh all the time.

I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

Performers like Tommy Cooper, who are always getting things wrong, are much more endearing than comedians who are sassy and smart.

As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.

People want their actors to do comedy, too. They don't want any comedians next to the actor. They want one solo hero and want to see everything in him.

My dad loved comedians, especially George Jessel, and he loved Henny Youngman and Buddy Hackett.

I know that it's probably not a good idea for a comedian, especially a satirist, to support a public policy group or a politician. This is something I learned only too well years ago when I did a fundraiser for Pol Pot. A few years later I saw 'The Killing Fields,' and I've got to tell you, I just felt like a schmuck.

During Vietnam, I was in college, enjoying my student deferment. The government wisely felt that, in my case, military service was less important than completing my studies to prepare me for my chosen career: comedian.

Well, a lot of politics is communicating with people, and obviously comedy has something to do with that. I've been a producer and led people. Also, being a comedian, you're under pressure.

I have seen and heard comedians who had really funny 'stuff' but yet could not make the people laugh; then, again - I have seen others whose stuff was anything but humorous, and the audience would howl with laughter.

Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.

Ever since I was a kid, I just loved those comedians on TV who would just have fun with the language.

I don't want to offend people and I don't want to be mean, but social commentary and comedy for me are part and parcel. I think the greatest social activists are comedians.

I've always been the king of silence. I've always been a minimalist comedian. I've taken my influence from Jack Benny, who was the king of that... I've always done 'less is more.'

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

I studied acting at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh because I figured a good comedian certainly could act.

My roots were in acting. That's all I wanted to be. Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

My dad played a character on the radio called 'Parkyakarkus.' A Greek-dialect comedian. He did Friars' roasts and wrote material and made people laugh that way. But he wrote his own shows with other writers.

It's famous that comedians have a very dark personal state of mind. I think, in my case, it's the same. The only way to get deep is to have a balance, or a counterbalance.

The optimum frequency with which comedians should do a series is every year. I do one every three years. My audience is literally dying off.

I played few hero roles in the initial days of my career, but audiences loved me for my comic timing and, therefore, I later turned comedian.

I really don't mind being a comedian because I get the chance to make people laugh and I think that's truly a gift.

A comedian's career span is five or 10 years. I am lucky to have worked with so many distinguished actors and their grandsons.

My daughter Fathima is a bigger comedian than me. She makes me laugh all the time.

Every male comedian of note who is over the age of 45 has a kid, and they talk about it and don't get grouped as 'dad comics.'

Aside from Joan Rivers and Roseanne, it's hard for me to think of any female comedian who's had kids and has a serious level of fame - like, the level where your mother has heard of them.

A lot of comedians, when they have a bad gig, will blame everything but themselves. They'll blame the crowd, or the room was wrong, it had a weird vibe, or the promoter promoted a weird atmosphere.

I didn't really want to be a comedian.

As a comedian who's used to, like, punching the jokes, it's hard to teach yourself that that's not the strong choice in the sense that you have to really have to dial it back.

'Smart Funny & Black' came about because I felt that black comedians were being considered as only capable of a certain type of comedy - sort of physical, kind of silly - and I felt like we are not a monolith, and our comedy isn't, either.

My whole intention is to break down these limitations of what a black comedian is supposed to be and to open up a space.