There’s only one true test of a comedy, and that’s outright laughter. I don’t care how beautiful the lighting is, how superlative the script is, how wonderful the performances are. If you’re making a comedy and the audience isn’t falling down, holding their bellies, screaming with laughter, you’ve probably got a failure. First laughter and then everything else.

I have a pretty good idea what is funny but if you do it twice in one day in front of a live audience. They will let you know if they like it or not.

It always seems to someone outside the business that it is very difficult to write for a comedy show because it must be done quickly. Actually, it is much easier to write this humor than to do a joke or a show from scratch, because the audience knows the plot. Just mention what is going on and then deliver the punch line.

The secret of writing comedy is to know where it's all going, then get ahead of it.

When writing for other comedians, someone once told me, “I want to make it my own.” I’d say, “Look, the jokes are written. The relationships are written. First, do it as written. Later you can make it your own.” A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.

Most of the time, comedians: we are expected to be the most agile, in terms of how we think and construct our thoughts and our-- what comes out of our mouth[s]. That's how we got the job. Y'know? So, I'm not really worried about [...] comedians as a group. We have been navigating these slalom gates forever.

Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.

I think people like a little more "personal revelation" in their comedy. And that's fine! They have-- There's three generations behind me doin' it. But my thing is: I want a number of jokes of a certain quality, and laughs. I want the room to just be ringin' with laughs.

What I am good at -- and what every comedian is good at -- is knowing how to carefully manage an audience's attention span.

Who knows what's funny?

Comedy is quite different to anything else – the most important thing is getting a laugh, and it’s a technical skill. You can easily kill a laugh by coming in too soon or with a different expression, so in a way it’s much harder work than drama, because with drama you just get into the script and that’s it! And the more you’re into the script, the more convincing you’ll be.

The secret to humor is surprise.

When the crowd is with you, the jokes are fresh, your timing is just right, and the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars. You are exactly where you should be, and there is nothing better. Comedy is a rare gift from the gods, an awesome invention. It propels you right into the heart of the universe.

No wonder all the great comedians had such destructive private lives. Lenny Bruce had to shoot up, Richard Pryor had to freebase. Sam Kinison was just as abusive towards himself as he was to the crowd. After you get the audience into that kind of frenzy, and you are being worshiped like the false idol you are, how do you leave the stage and transition back into real life? How can you just come down? How can you ease back into mortality? What will you do for an encore? What is there left to do but set yourself on fire?