Quote

I remember certain people in the audience laughing and I wanted to ask: 'What are you laughing at? This isn't funny.' Now I realize that laughter can come from insecurity. They don't know how they should be feeling.

I learned early in life that laughter is a great way to diffuse and uncomfortable situation, so I began to use that as a tool, throughout my life.

There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.

Once you've experienced the warmth of an audience, the achievement of getting your first laugh, and entertaining them, singing or playing piano, it just keeps it all going.

On stage, it is a tremendous thing to be able to make people laugh. But one of the things that I have always loved is when I am in shows where you can turn the audience upside down and make them cry or move them. That is when things are the most rewarding.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

Making people laugh is a really fabulous thing because it means you're getting deep inside somebody, into their psyche, and their ability to look at themselves.

The audience changes every night. You're the same person. You have to speak your mind and do the stuff that you think is funny and makes you laugh.