Jerry Seinfeld Quotes

The beautiful thing that Michael discovered-- and I don't know at what point it was; maybe it was the second year [of Seinfeld]: he was playing Kramer a little slower than the other three characters, a little dumber. And then, he got the idea that he should play it that everyone else is dumber than him. And that was the key to it. Once he got that: then, the character just took off!

Poetry is bad standup. It's carefully chosen words that have no laugh at the end.*

Stand-up is the only thing that I knew -- that I could be sure -- that I-- if I was doing it, and audiences were responding well, that I wasn't cheating. 'Cause there is no way to cheat, in stand-up! It's the naked-est, purest thing in the world.

You know how the old people drive? They drive slow, they sit low. That is their motto. The state flag of Florida should be just a steering wheel with a hat and two [sets of] knuckles on it. And then that left turn signal on from when they left the house that morning. That's a legal turn in Florida: it's known as an eventual left.

I'm in the unfortunate position of having to consider other people's feelings

I would say the advice I would give [my younger self], or any young person, would be "Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success."

Twenty minutes is not comedy. An hour, an hour and fifteen minutes: that's comedy, y'know? You learn how to open, how to sustain, how to pace.

Do you think that's how life ends? That you just-- really just go "It's enough. I had enough." I know when my time comes, that how I'm gonna feel. I already feel that way!

You know the message you're sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You're telling the world, 'I give up. I can't compete in normal society. I'm miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.

Why is commitment the kryptonite of men, super and otherwise? [...] The trouble is that, deep down, most of us men believe we have a great deal in common with superheroes. This is the secret truth of all male thinking. I'm not even supposed to be telling you this. When men are growing up and reading about Batman, Spiderman and Superman, these are not fantasies, these are options.

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!

I would go so far as to say that was the key to the entire [Seinfeld] show, was that we really felt like together we were funny, and then the audience felt it, and that's how you can somehow catch lightning in a bottle.

There's absolutely no difference between the greatest painting ever made and a joke. It's just something someone invented that someone else likes! That's art. And it has no reason to exist, except its own virtue.

Sometimes I want to go back to the old flip phone. One of those old-people ones that they advertise on TV with the giant buttons like floor tiles.

I love when a critic reviews a stand-up comedian. You want to go "I've left town already, with the money!" (laughs) "I don't care what you think."