Comedy isn’t necessarily all dialogue. Think of Buster Keaton: the poker face and all this chaos going on all around him. Sometimes it’s a question of timing, of the proper rhythm.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You’d wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

What I like about the jokes, to me it’s a lot of logic, no matter how crazy they are. It has to make absolute sense, or it won’t be funny.

Comedy’s about opening up and being unique, but to a point where the audience can relate to what you’re saying.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.

I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose… it’ll be much harder to detect.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That’s the funniest joke in the world.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I laugh all the time – at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don’t laugh onstage because then it’s serious business.

If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression.

Stand-up is hard.

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

It’s very interesting, the joke comes first and then the wording comes within five seconds, maybe ten seconds. My thing is to get the joke across in as few words as possible. However, sometimes a word that’s not really needed does help the rhythm of it. It’s a gut feeling.

When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

You know, crankiness is at the essence of all comedy.

Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

Classical – perhaps I should say ‚orchestral‘ – music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It’s all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities.

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.

As a comedian, I found this thing, this profession, that suits my mind and life force. To drop it to do something else? I just don’t get that.

But I did ‚Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.‘ They made a cereal out of it, so once you’ve had a cereal, it doesn’t get much more surreal than that. Surreal cereal.

I’ve always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

Friends applaud, the comedy is over.

I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

I’ll continue to make the typical Adam Sandler comedies.

SNL is a home. You’ve got all of your brothers and sisters there, and it’s a great time.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There’s entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.

I’m a big believer than a great bit is a great bit – if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they’re beautiful things when they’re done.

I absolutely want to have a career where you make’em laugh and make’em cry. It’s all theater.

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

I started in action, and then I went to comedy school.

I now have two different audiences. There’s the one that has been watching my action films for 20 years, and the American family audience. American jokes, less fighting.

I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. If I had a girl, she’d probably be really rebellious. She would be like a bundle of karma. I would love to bring them up in Barbados.

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

I make fun of situations and try and find the humor in things, but it’s never at the expense of the other guy.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

I do love the films I’ve done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we’re trying to make people laugh and I’m very proud of that.

If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?

I’ve taken countless shots in my life, so you know the ones when you’re in rhythm, with a perfect release, and it’s on track, that it’s going in.

You can say, ‚Well, isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine‘ – well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter, because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

I don’t get up, get dressed, go out, and think, ‚Okay, I gotta find eight jokes.‘

I know a dramatic role is going to happen, but you just got to be patient, you know? It’s going to happen when it’s supposed to happen. I’m not rushing it. I’m not trying to make it happen tomorrow.