Jerry Seinfeld Quotes

There's no "putting an act together". Okay? A stand-up comedian is an act. You are an act. You breathe and live an act. It's not assembled; it's not-- This is not Hello, Dolly!. It's constant, it's organic; you live inside it. It's like a snow globe. Comedy is a snow globe. You live in it.

One of the things that the comedian mindset requires is laziness.

My first bit that I thought "That's a real bit!" was about the tramway between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island. 1976: the city was going bankrupt. I go "Oh! That's great! They're putting up rides for us! Next thing, I guess they'll be putting up a rollercoaster through the ghetto!"

It's not enough that we catch [lobsters], kill them, and eat them. We want to see them in the tank as we walk into the restaurant, sweating it out. [...] I saw one once that looked like he was attempting to clean the inside of the tank. "I just work here."

Do the people that work in these little shops in the airport have any idea what the prices are every place else in the world? "Yeah, $14, tuna sandwich. We think that's fair."

At one point, in the early 80s, I got a part on a sitcom called Benson. And I was on the show for 3 episodes, and then I got fired. And I thought that would be the only break I was ever going to get. It was just a youthful lack of perspective. But at the time, I thought that was it. But it really ended up making me really get into being a much better standup comedian so that I wouldn't be dependent on other people. It ended up being a good thing. The best things in my life have been the bad things that taught me stuff.

The sad truth is, people are only interested in themselves. So, if you just ask them what they are doing or what’s going on or how they feel, they generally go on for hours.

I thought "This is the pinnacle of life, to me: if [I] could do this-- y'know, if [I] could stand up on stage and make people laugh, that would be the ultimate accomplishment of my personality!" And I just thought "Laughs! To be working with laughs and jokes all the time: what a fun life that would be!"

Friends, family, school, they were just obstacles in the way of getting more books.

Being a good husband is like being a stand-up comic. You need 10 years before you can call yourself a beginner.

There is absolutely nothing you can do on a date to help you feel better about the tremendously uncomfortable situation you're in. And the reason it's uncomfortable is that no one's on the date for the date. They're on the date to see what's going to happen at the end of the date.

I remember somebody coming in and pitching me an idea one time, and I'm saying "No. No, I don't think so." And-- and the writer said to me "But we've done this so many times before!" And I went "That is not a point in its favor!"

That's the greatest thing about comedy. If you've got talent, it's unmistakable. No one misses it and you don't have to wait around for a break.

Being a dad is-- y'know, it's a surfboard on a rainbow. You're gettin' all you can handle of life.

I was the only guy, by the way, in the early '80s [who] was welcome on your show and Carson; usually, it was kind of-- that was-- there was a bit of a wall there. [...] If you were a Carson comic, you were probably not young enough or cool enough for Late Night. And vice-versa. But I for some reason was able to go back and forth, and I was always very proud of that, in the early days.