I rewrote it and I took all your notes. Read it again, that kind of persistence paid off.

We were the guys on the other side. It was hilarious.

I started writing this feature comedy in New York - a Chris Farley vehicle. The script was decent. When I got to LA, I met some new friends in film school and had them read my script and give me notes.

Your relationship with an agent has got to be mutually beneficial. If you can't help their careers, then they're not going to be interested.

And it was a huge emotional thing to leave the law and become unemployed - to be a student again.

The whole idea of doing the Hollywood thing never even occurred to me. When you grow up on the East coast, Hollywood seems like this fantasy land and you don't think that people can actually make a living there.

I rewrote it and I took all your notes. Read it again, that kind of persistence paid off.

Being a lawyer in New York sucks because you're working eighty, sometimes a hundred hours a week.

A spontaneous interview feels differently than anything else you see on television.

Comedians talk to other comedians the way jazz musicians can talk to each other.

Great Canadian comics are often outsiders and insiders at the same time. That's a great perspective for a comedian.

Here's the rule that I set for myself, and I believe it - even on a show like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm': the more personal you are, the wider your audience.

I don't believe any particular ethnic group is smarter than any other group.

I don't really dissect comedy. Nothing kills off humor more than overanalyzing it.

I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations.

I used to have a theory actually that, if you've had a good childhood, a good marriage and a little bit of money in the bank, you're going to make a lousy comedian.

In comedy, looking back is more important than looking around at your contemporaries because they are too much influenced by the same time period as you are.

My father was a rabbi and had a little synagogue in Canada, so I'm from Canada. I left there at 16.

On 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' it takes almost a year to get 10 shows written. It always reminds me of my old yeshiva days, where you used to sit over a piece of Talmud and analyze everything that was going on.

Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.

The interesting thing about improvisation is you're making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that'll separate you from the audience.

The odd thing about comedy is that the more personal you are, the larger the audience.

The one thing an audience always has in common with a comedian is troubles. The Yiddish word for that is tsuris. You're always putting your tsuris on stage whether you like it or not. No one is untroubled, unless they're just, you know, an imbecile.

The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.

When I started, you didn't make a lot of money by being a comedian. You didn't get a lot of respect.

When I talk to Steve Martin, he's joyful when he talks about comedy.

You don't need to be stable to be a stand-up comedian.

When I meet successful people I ask 100 questions as to what they attribute their success to. It is usually the same: persistence, hard work and hiring good people.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity. We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.

Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.

What staggers me is not the persistence of illusion, but the persistence of the world in the face of illusion.

As for goals, I don't set myself those anymore. I'm not one of these 'I must have achieved this and that by next year' kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end.

Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

When we say that the persistence of competition is ensured by fate, we mean that individual freedom is so guaranteed. The one thing to which fate binds us is liberty.

This persistence as private firms continued because it ensured the maximum of anonymity and secrecy to persons of tremendous public power who dreaded public knowledge of their activities as an evil almost as great as inflation.