Jerry Seinfeld Quotes

I would say the main competition for the book is the video because for some reason people feel they need to come home with a rectangular block of something that they don't know the end of. The big advantage of a book is it's very easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.

The reason I got [Seinfeld] is: my manager, George Shapiro, wrote a note to Brandon Tartikoff, the President of NBC, and it was one sentence; he said "Call me a crazy guy, but I think some day Jerry Seinfeld's gonna be doing a series on NBC." Now, when he wrote that note, it was... 1988. I had been on The Tonight Show for seven years -- three times a year -- destroying. [...] And George still [had] to say to NBC "I know this sounds crazy...". I thought of this just the other week: "What was so crazy about the idea?"

Great steering is, to me, the essence of the automotive experience.

Being engaged is-- you know what it's like to me? It's like being on the first part of the rollercoaster, where you're just goin' up: (makes ticking noises) "Boy, this looks pretty scary!"

How come every day there's exactly the right amount of news to fill the paper?

Remember when you were in school and they'd do those hearing tests? [...] I wanted to do unbelievable on the hearing test. I wanted them to come over to me and go, "We think you may have something close to super-hearing. What you heard was a cotton ball touching a piece of felt. We're sending the results to Washington, we'd like you to meet the President."

I'm a single guy. I date. I think I enjoy it. For me, nothing caps off a week like four hours of solid tension.

I'm a little compulsive-- a compulsive tinkerer. Y'know? I love to just "Well, let's try this, and maybe shrink that section a little bit." I mean, that's what stand-up is, is constantly moving the accordion to different sizes.

I've figured out that the "non-event" is the best part of life.

That is the feeling of life: you've got to go, all the time. You get to your job, what is your first thought? "I want to get home." But you get home, you feel cooped up; you've got to get out. You're out, it's late; you've got to get back. Wherever you are, you've got to get the hell out of there!

Fear is funny. Especially when it's not fake!

I think, if I was an Olympic athlete, I would rather come in last than win the silver... if you think about it. Y'know, you win the gold, you feel good; you win the bronze, you think "Well, at least I got something." But you win that silver, that's like: "Congratulations! You... almost won." "Of all the losers, you came in first... of that group." "You're the number one... loser." "No one lost... ahead of you."

I think the best Seinfeld episode idea I ever contributed was that George pretending to be a marine biologist would find Kramer's golf ball in the blowhole of the whale. Believe it or not, we were doing both of those stories without seeing any connection that Kramer was gonna hit golf balls at the beach, and George was gonna be pretending to be a marine biologist. And it was in the middle of the week that it suddenly hit me of a way to connect the two stories.

You almost kind of knew you were on the right track, when people at the network didn't like it. I mean, I wanted them to like it, but we weren't going to, y'know, really change the tone of the show. I couldn't have done a show any other-- I couldn't have done any other show than that show; I just wouldn't have-- wouldn't know how to do it!

A great joke and a great car: everything on it works. And there's nothing excessive that doesn't make sense or doesn't need to be there. [...] To me, the Speedster and a great piece of comedy are identical: they're perfectly minimalized ideas.