Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it’s dangerous.

To be honest with you, 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.

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

Having other comedians complimenting my work is the biggest accolade that I can get.

George Carlin’s album, ‚Class Clown,‘ came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I’d come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don’t even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.

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

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.

I take risks because I get bored. And I get bored very easily.

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

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

I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

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.

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

I’ll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ‚em up myself.

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.

Stand-up is hard.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

Chris Rock does the political thing really well, but that never worked for me.

My mother is from another time – the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that’s what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I know if I wasn’t her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going.

At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.

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

Nobody enjoys the ‚little show about nothing‘ humor more than me, but that is never the way I look at it.

At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, and if I’m able to say or do something in a movie that people feel like they want to repeat, that’s hugely flattering.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

I knew that I was ‚interesting‘ at 18 because I was aware that I could get away with doing things on stage.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

My goal is to make everyone and anyone a Kevin Hart fan.

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the ‚Boston Phoenix,‘ and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that’s where I first saw ‚deadpan.‘

I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.

In comedy, my strengths are improvisation.

I didn’t want to be selling insurance at 40, wondering what would it have been like to do stand-up.

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.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

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

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

I prefer musicals, because I am the best dancer who ever lived. The best plies, the best sashays, and by far the best-smelling Capezios.

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.

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

When I do stand-up shows at colleges, girls will talk to me after the show, and that always feels good. I like talking to them.

I think when you see an aircraft fire, these angry, black puffs of smoke, knowing that one of them could kill you that you – you – you understand the seriousness of the mission. And you understand your own mortality.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

Friends applaud, the comedy is over.

I spent two years in the military service, then I trudged around in repertory for quite a while. I somehow wound up at the National Theatre, though, and then I was definitely on my way.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

I look just like the girls next door… if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

I kind of thought that stand-up comedy would suffer from the Internet because people seem to know more about the craft of stand-up than ever before. I thought it would seem trite. Kind of like if you know more about magicians, you wouldn’t love them.

I’ve taken so many kids out of Pittsburgh and onto the great white way in New York City right into a Broadway show.

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.

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

I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.