Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

I want to keep meeting new people, enlarging my circle of friends. I have great friends now... really good people. But I'm always ready for what comes next.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

In my next life, I want to be tall and thin, parallel park and make good coffee. But for now, I have lots of stuff to work out in my life, but I'll have that until the day I die. I want to write more books.

At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help. There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel my family was supportive and emotionally generous.

Sometimes it's easier to show than it is to tell.

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

I made the choice long ago to write about real life. And life is both serious and funny.

When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

I try to be careful because technology changes so much over the years. But some things don't change. Kids and parents have disagreements, kids try to manipulate, parents try to sit down with rules and regs. That part never changes.

I deal with unhappy marriages a lot. I've never been married, I'm single.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

I tried to write with someone else once before, but it was not successful.

None of my characters seem to have had sex yet - I haven't written about that. And I wouldn't want to deal with what's happening in Oregon - the school shootings.

I didn't expect to be doing a whole bunch of Amber Browns. And because it was just one book, and the father had moved away, I didn't realize I was going to have to deal more with shared custody, divorce and all those issues.

I wish I had had my books when I was a kid, I do.

The books are funny and sad, and that's what people respond to.

I think my books talk about kids learning to like and respect themselves and each other. You can't write a message book; you just tell the best story you know how to tell.

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.

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

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

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

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

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

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

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.

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

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.