Anthony Jeselnik Quotes

“Charlie Sheen called his boss on 'Two and a Half Men' a 'Jew ki**' and expected to go back to work. That's crazy. If you could do that and keep your job, then everybody would do it.”

“Dark humor appealed to me because it was a bigger laugh than you could get with anything else. Seeing people laugh at something inappropriate with their whole bodies, a guttural, visceral laugh beyond a mere 'hah'.”

“Disasters are funny to me. As a comedian you learn from failure, so I'm always trying to put myself in a situation that does not seem ideal for my comedy and see how it works.”

“Do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it.”

“Every comic went through their Mitch Hedberg phase – the glasses, the hair in the face – and you knew immediately when they were doing it.”

“Everyone has the same kind of fears; everyone has the same big problems in the world, which is, like, fear of death and I hope horrible things dont happen to my family, but they do. And I think people laugh at them as this great release.”

“I always loved comedy, but it never seemed like something that I could do professionally.”

“I do dark humor. I like people who are silly and weird and people who are surprising and good at what they do.”

“I don't think people shouldn't try to be edgy, but you have to take what the audience says to you in consideration.”

“I enjoyed writing for someone else's voice, but I wasn't very good at it.”

“I had written for Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman in the past. Jimmy had a different voice, and different priorities. He couldn't be the bad guy in the joke; he couldn't upset people, really.”

“I have that need in me, I want everyone to love me, but I'm embarrassed by that need, so I wanted to cover it up in my persona. I felt like I wouldn't be able to do stand-up for a career if I was needy. I didn't want to be complaining or whining onstage. I wanted to be cool and do exactly what I wanted to do. That way I would never have to change for anybody.”

“I know her in the biblical sense and when I say that, I mean I don't believe a word she says.”

“I like seeing what the comedian thinks is funny, not just what they think I'll think is funny.”

“I like the idea of being the funny guy in the dramatic thing, playing a hit man with a weird sense of humor.”

“I loved Stephen Wright, and I loved Mitch Hedberg, but they seemed like geniuses you could never emulate. You'd just be ripping them off.”

“I never go see live comedy shows because I just sit in the audience thinking, "Here's what I would say. Here's what I would do if I got up there." It drives me crazy.”

“I want people to just be paying attention even if they're not necessarily laughing at something, or if it takes them a while to get something, I don't mind that. If half the crowd gets the joke and the other half is sitting there scratching their heads, that's just as good for me if I like the joke, because I feel like it just brings people in more.”

“I was a terrible employee. I've been fired from almost every job I've ever had, luckily, in a good way, or else I'd be stuck. I would always joke around with everybody, and no one enjoyed my humor.”

“I was always cutting words. I even would write my jokes in my notebook. I still do this, almost like a poem.”

“I would write 100 jokes a day. Most of them were terrible. But I just said: I'll write more than everybody else, and that's how I'll get better.”

“I'm a realist all the way. I'm too cynical to be an optimist. But I've lived too much of a charmed life so far to ever be a pessimist.”

“I'm not a comedy writer, I'm a comedian, so I only write stuff that I would want to say.”

“I'm not a religious person; I would call myself an atheist. I don't have a good story behind it, I'm just reasonable.”

“I'm not just offensive, I'm very smart about the way that I do it, and that takes a lot of time. People say that young comics shouldn't be trying these things. That's ridiculous. You should try everything and see what sticks.”

“I'm not the voice of reason; I'm more the guy using these offensive topics as fodder to raise tension in a joke.”

“I've got a long history of suicide in my family; the good news is it skips a generation, so, if I'm lucky, my kids will kill themselves.”

“I've spent the past two years looking for my ex-girlfriend's killer – but no one will do it.”

“If I tell a joke on stage and the crowd laughs for a minute, I stand there for a minute and enjoy them laughing before I go on to the next joke. On TV, if I stand there for a minute while they laugh, I look like an idiot who can't remember the next joke.”

“In comedy, I hate that cop-out where you say, 'Just kidding.' I know you're just kidding. Don't insult my intelligence by spelling it out for me that much.”