The real concept of [Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee] is: being a comedian is two things. One is: there's a show you do at night, for an audience, that you get paid for; but most of your life is hanging out during the day with other comedians, waiting for night... to do your show! [...] So, you have your set, but then, you hang out with these other people that are like yourself: they're a little socially awkward; they have this comedic aspect of their brain that they cannot turn off... and have difficulty having normal conversations with people, because we just want to say foul, obnoxious, hilarious things to make each other laugh. So, I thought "What if I tried to show people this side of the comedian life?"

Stand-up comedy's also the most mysterious profession in show business. It's completely shrouded in [the] mystery of "How do these people do it?" [...] Only other comedians understand it. It's like, y'know, being a cop or a prostitute: you can only hang out with other people [who] do that.

Larry and I were so good together [on Seinfeld], if we both thought something was funny, that was good enough. That's it. If it can get through those two filters, and we both think "That's funny", I don't even-- I wouldn't even care if it wasn't funny.

The thing that's great about [having] kids is: they don't care what you think is great. [...] Everything you like, they've got to take the other side. That's the great balancing thing of kids: they're not impressed with anything you're impressed with.

Talent is a horse that [you] just find yourself on. And the extent to which you can learn to ride it -- or it guides you or even throws you-- I mean, Freddie Prinze is a perfect example of a guy [who was] sitting on a stallion, but had no clue how to ride it. [...] That's [how] I think of a career, as kind of a rider and a horse: you trying to control this talent.

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.

The time-travel aspect of old cars, to me, is a big part of the fun. [...] I live out in East Hampton, and there's a lot of roads out there where you can't tell what year it is. So, if you get in a '63 -- and that's a '63-- everything on it was made in '63 -- you can kind of go into that little dream, like "Well, gee, if I was-- had this car in that year, this-- it would be just like this!"

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.