Quote

I think that humor has become a principle means of communication among Americans about politics.

There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.

But in terms of satire and comedy, our biggest and earliest influence was Mad magazine.

I think we grew up thinking that the funniest things on TV were the old, serious movies. I always liked the Marx Brothers, but the thing that always made us laugh were movies like Zero Hour. That's what inspired us.

Comedy is the slave of time. What seemed funny then is unlikely to seem funny now, just as what strikes us as funny now would not have seemed funny then.

When I got to 'The Daily Show,' they asked me to have a political opinion. It turned out that I had one, but I didn't realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices as opposed to necessarily successful comedic choices.

It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.

When I started, there was no comedy community, no comedy industry; there were comedians.

There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business.

Comedy in America is very serious. Either they laugh, or they don't.