Billy Collins Quotes
Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
Quotes to Explore
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I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers.
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I don't have the looks to compete at a bar, and I'm not that funny. So the last thing I want is to be in a situation where that's what I'm competing on. I'd rather be on OkCupid or Match, where I can write a 300-word essay about myself that's really good.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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Most things I get hired on, I get hired because I improvise something funny, or they just think I look weird.
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Whenever I'm in the U.K., people say I have an American accent. Which is, obviously, funny.
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When you're a woman, you have to work harder to get a laugh... I follow so many hilarious women on Twitter. It's a daily reminder that women get to be funny.
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A mate of mine told me recently, 'It's the first time I've seen you work, Worthington.' I thought that was quite funny, but he was right.
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I did accents and funny voices for the family when I was growing up.
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My voice is distinctive: there's a rhythm to it, and also, it's funny. I was just blessed with a funny-sounding voice.
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Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for budding writers as an M.F.A. is now. To be sent away was a badge of honor; to undergo electroshock, a glorious martyrdom.
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I have an unfortunate personality.
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Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
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It's so funny: at 'SNL,' Bill Hader always kind of treated me like his little sister and would kind of, like, lovingly bully me.
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I think Secretary's funny, it is about sex, and there's a lot of sex in it, sex is the key, but you're talking about a lot of other complicated things.
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Being a humorist is not a voluntary thing. You can tell this because in a situation where saying a funny thing will cause a lot of trouble, a humorist will still say the funny thing. No matter how inappropriate.
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If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
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Flirting is funny. And it's awkward and weird.
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I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes?
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I'm doin' something different. I mean, I talk a little bit about race and interracial dating, but it's not the heart of my act. I just try to do what I think is funny; there's no huge message or through line.
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I'd be hard-pressed to think of anybody who's made me laugh, who's funny, but who's also relentlessly positive.
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I always tell younger filmmakers, it's not just about the acting or the art itself. It's about how big of an audience watches your film.
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Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.
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I have a knife collection.
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Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
