The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.

Denis Norden

Not a MindZip member yet

Money

Comedians

Comedy

Song

Writers

Denis Norden's quotes

Denis Norden

Explore more quotes

And if you can offer an explanation as to why it doesn't work then you've got to the whole root of comedy.

Denis Norden

I defy anyone to get a decision that quickly these days.

Denis Norden

There's an unseen force which lets birds know when you've just washed your car.

Denis Norden

I used to like writing for comedians - I enjoyed the challenge of making other people funny.

Denis Norden

If the laughter of the audience was malicious we wouldn't show it.

Denis Norden

Then after that came word processors and it's hard to make those laugh.

Denis Norden

Frank liked administrative work and was good at it.

Denis Norden

The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.

Denis Norden

Everyone who appears in a scene gets paid.

Denis Norden

It's like your children talking about holidays, you find they have a quite different memory of it from you. Perhaps everything is not how it is, but how it's remembered.

Denis Norden

And when you're on your own there is that terrifying possibility that you may be the only person on the planet who thinks it's funny - and you have no way of finding out.

Denis Norden

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

Patton Oswalt

My favorite comedians were Jimmy Durante, George Burns, senior citizens.

Joseph Bologna

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Johann Georg Zimmermann

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

Florenz Ziegfeld

I was up until all hours of the night, listening to stories, meeting great old comedians.

Joely Fisher

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

Wanda Sykes

It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing.

Harvey Pekar

I don't know any astronauts. There are a lot of people who say they want to be comedians.

Todd Barry

Ever since I was a kid, I just loved those comedians on TV who would just have fun with the language.

Alan Rudolph

I believe it is important for comedians to know who came before them.

Shelley Berman

The real good comedians, like Chaplin, would make you laugh and a second later, cry.

Martin Landau

Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

Ben Stiller

Comedians walk out, get a feel for the crowd. If it's not going good, we change directions. If we got to drag your momma into this thing, we will. Whatever we got to do.

Steve Harvey

But it's fun to be something, have that, and you don't have to be real. It's like, comedians. They go on and they're doing all these jokes. I would be like that if I were more awake.

Parker Posey

I thought comedians had to have black on their faces or red beards.

Dorothy Gish

Comedians don't laugh. They're too busy analyzing why it's funny or not.

James Lipton

They don't make you pay for the humor. It's up and down, but they're trying to give you as many laughs as possible in 2 minutes. They are the most honest comedians ever.

Mike Judge

That's why modern corporate movie making has become so laborious that comedians are kind of kicked out by 50.

Dana Carvey

I used to like writing for comedians - I enjoyed the challenge of making other people funny.

Denis Norden

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don't work that way. There was a temptation in the early '70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

Bob Newhart

I have worked with a great many comedians as opposed to comics, although I have worked with comics as well, I make the distinction.

Bobby Darin

You shouldn't listen to us at all if you're looking for information. We don't take ourselves seriously on any level; we're just comedians.

Stephen Colbert

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

Will Rogers

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

Paula Danziger

Sure, the comedians who swear or use scatological humor can get laughs, but they're uncomfortable laughs.

John Ratzenberger

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

Jimmy Durante

I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.

Ben E. King

My grandfather was running Hillcrest Country Club, and that's where a whole group of Hollywood comedians hung out.

Leigh Steinberg

Comedians still make fun of Bill's out-of-control appetites, but with Hillary, the mockery is about how she lets nothing be out of control.

Rich Lowry

Performers like Tommy Cooper, who are always getting things wrong, are much more endearing than comedians who are sassy and smart.

Adrian Edmondson

Denis Norden

I mean, the death in the late eighties and early nineties really shook out a lot of hacks. The pond just sort of dried up for a lot of really bad comedians.

Patton Oswalt

The only one that got through was Jimmy Walker, because he plays the gas station attendant. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that we were kind of purists at the time, and we didn't want any comedians.

David Zucker

Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.

Carl Reiner

I'm no way one of those comedians who want to do drama. I really do love comedies. I hope to go back to it.

Molly Shannon

It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.

Rachel Weisz

A lot of comedians, when they have a bad gig, will blame everything but themselves. They'll blame the crowd, or the room was wrong, it had a weird vibe, or the promoter promoted a weird atmosphere.

Allan Carr