Jerry Seinfeld Quotes

American comedian and actor

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Jerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld (born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known for playing a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which he created and wrote with Larry David. The show aired on NBC from 1989 until 1998, becoming one of the most acclaimed and popular American sitcoms of all time. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy.

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Alternative Names: Cable Boy • Jerome Allen Seinfeld • Mr. Steinfeld

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The way I look at life, basically, is: it's exhausting. And... (laughs) Doing-- Being busy is exhausting; doing nothing is exhausting. No matter what you do... as a human -- on Earth -- it's exhausting.

We improvised virtually nothing [on Seinfeld], as a matter of fact. That's how good the actors were, that it sometimes seems like they are improvising. But we also knew each other so well that we knew exactly what sentences to put in their mouths that would seem natural.

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.

When I heard that they were going to do a sitcom with a secret agent who was funny, that it was going to be a comedy secret agent TV show, and it was going to be called "Get Smart," the back of my head blew off. So that was really my favorite show when I was a kid.

I would say that I am 90% serious in my day. Comedy is no joke.

Writer's block is a phony, made up, BS excuse for not doing your work.

When I started out in comedy in the 70s, if you didn't do clean humor you weren't getting on TV, so I started doing that so I could be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. And then when I saw what other people were doing, I just always wanted to be a little different.

Newman would be my favorite supporting character. I mean, when I got to have a real evil nemesis like Superman would have, that was a dream come true for me.

The only line I quote from [Seinfeld] [...] is "If you're one of us, you'll take a bite." [...] Sometimes I'll quote Newman in flames screaming "Oh the humanity."

You may have noticed that I tend to quit things soon after doing them, like TV series, animated movies, book writing, broadway plays. I do feel very strongly in stopping the second I feel like I'm not excited anymore, whatever I'm doing.

I was happy with the Seinfeld finale because we didn't want to do another episode as much as we wanted to have everybody come back to the show we had so much fun with. It was a way to thank all of the people who worked on the show over the years that we thought made the show work.

[Larry and I] never obsess over anything that isn't mundane.

I still think everything has its life cycle and if you respect it, people enjoy it longer.

Very early on in my career, I hit upon this idea of being the Heckle Therapist. So that when people would say something nasty, I would immediately become very sympathetic to them and try to help them with their problem and try to work out what was upsetting them, and try to be very understanding with their anger. It opened up this whole fun avenue for me as a comedian, and no one had ever seen that before.

The thing about [Seinfeld] is that you have to realize that I had to look into the faces of those people, six inches away, so if you think Kramer is funny on TV, imagine his real face six inches from your nose, how funny that is. You can't imagine. It's impossible not to laugh. So I would.