Humor helps ease the tension of race and the differences in society. If there wasn't comedy I don't know if Obama could have ever become president.

I think in life the sense of humor and comedy always exists.

I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

One of my pet peeves is that sometimes the talents of my band get overlooked because and it was the same problem that Frank Zappa had with a lot of groups that use humor people don't realize there's a lot of craft behind the comedy.

One of my favorite things about 'Star Trek' wasn't just the overt banter but the humor in that show about the relationships between the main characters and their reactions to the situations they would face there was a lot of comedy in that show without ever breaking its reality.

Feature-length film comedy is harder to pull off than the episodic sitcom - it doesn't have the same factory machinery up and running teams of writers putting familiar characters through permutations - but that doesn't explain the widening quality gap that makes movie humor look like a genetic defective.

People who know me they know I have a sense of humor I'm a bit of a joker a bit of a clown really and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain comedy and tragedy humor and hurt.

Comedy we may say is society protecting itself - with a smile.

Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.

I enjoy comedy and I hope that people enjoy watching me do it.

Drama can feel like therapy whereas comedy feels like there's been a pressure and a weight lifted off of you. You come to work and you laugh all day you go home and you feel light and there's a certain feeling when you're sitting with the audience and they leave after 90 minutes and it's just pure escapism and they're happy.

I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

Vegas means comedy tragedy happiness and sadness all at the same time.

You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life comedy.

Sometimes I make very selfish choices like I did 'Once Upon A Time' for my inner 8-year-old and my hypothetical future child. I've done some movies because I would regret them if I didn't but other projects I've done because they've scared me or if I felt I needed to do a big romantic comedy to help me professionally.

Comedy was the key to everything. I grew up fast and controlled my future by bringing it on faster than it naturally unfolded. I cheated myself out of a childhood but then got a running headstart into adulthood that no one else could keep up with.

People are funny and in the most tragic situations when comedy erupts from nowhere it can turn on its head within the space of a second or a minute. You're laughing one minute and you're crying the next and that's just life for me and that is what people are like.

The prospects for a coherent hilarious and consistent American comedy seem to lessen every year as the poor waterlogged gassy corpse called 'Evan Almighty' proved when it floated ashore recently. So there's a temptation to think too highly of Robin Williams's uneven but occasionally funny 'License to Wed.'

You know if I started worrying about what the critics think I'd never make another comedy. You couldn't pick a less funny group than critics - you couldn't find a more bitter group of people!

Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like 'Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?' It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy.

In my experience it's not just that serious books get a hearing on comedy shows. But serious books get a serious hearing as well as a funny one on comedy shows.

And regardless of the fact that in this country certainly in the arts we treat comedy as a second-class citizen I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked the Greeks were holding up two masks. I've always thought of it not only as having equal value but as the craft of it being funny.

I can do comedy so people want me to do that but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side.