Norm MacDonald Quotes
-
When I hear a guy lost a battle to cancer, that really did bother me, that that's a term. It implies that he failed and that somebody else that defeated cancer is heroic and courageous.
-
The only two TV shows I saw do that, where they don't warm them up and you can really bomb, was Saturday Night Live - and that's why it gets a lot of heat, too. Obviously it gets criticism fairly, too. But a lot of it is because Lorne Michaels lets the audience decide and doesn't force them to laugh.
-
If you watch that show and you didn't know it was called Seinfeld, you'd think it was called 'The George Costanza Show'.
-
It's a very odd thing with Hollywood, where you do stand-up, you're good at it, then they go, "How would you like to be a horrible actor?" Then you say, "All right, that sounds good. I'll do that."
-
They're like ''You're an alcoholic.'' I go ''No, I'm not.'' and then-apparently that's what alcoholics say too, you know?
-
Some men mistake generosity for charity: these flatter themselves that they are giving gratuitously, whilst they are merely rewarding secret services offered their vanity.
-
It's tough to know who's better in cliff diving. Like, you see a guy diving off a cliff and you go, Oh, man, a guy diving off a cliff! And then another guy'd dive- Oh, there's another guy diving off a cliff there. But you can't tell who's better, y'know? Like, uh- if you survive at all, hey, you're a great- you're a great cliff diver there. There's only two classifications in cliffdiving. There's, uh- 'Grand Champion' and then, uh- 'Stuff On a Rock.' Very hard to make a comeback in that sport, I'll tell you that.
-
I would love to stay at SNL forever. But you can't stay in the same place. People think you're a loser.
-
I don't have any ego about it, but I find there's not a great work ethic in show business. A lot of people are in it to make money, and coming from stand-up, you have to work so hard because almost nothing works, and if you lose the audience for three minutes, you're dead.
-
I'm happy doing stand-up, but I'll probably do a television show eventually. If not, I'll delve into this Internet world and decide best how to harness it. What I like best about it is the independent movie style and the ability to just be completely reckless within that world. I like that a lot. I just have to acquaint myself with technology.
-
The man that does not fear punishment, little regards crime.
-
I just like doing standup, that's all I'm interested in or good at.
-
I tried to make the punchline as close to the setup as I could. And I thought that was the perfect thing. If I could make the setup and the punchline identical to each other, I would create a different kind of joke.
-
All kinds of violence on the TV. You're not supposed to watch violence on the TV. Children, they can't watch it 'cause they're afraid maybe the kids will copy something they see on the TV. I can't even get a funny cartoon anymore because some 12-year-old somewhere watched a particularly violent episode of the Road Runner-Coyote show, and the next day, they found him at the bottom of a canyon, two giant springs strapped to his feet.
-
Many people are skeptical about marriage of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Pressley. They say, Lisa Marie is more of a sit at home type, while Michael Jackson is more of a homosexual pedophile.
-
Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.
-
During misfortunes, nothing aggravates our condition more, than to be esteemed deserving of them.
-
A man's enemies are those he should endeavor first to make his friends.
-
The young compliment their greatness on the number of their friends; the old, on the confidence of them.
-
The standard of morals is as variable as morals themselves; of which every nation has a different code, and every custom a different reading.
-
My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don't know. Probably died.
-
The reason we have few friends in adversity, is, because we have no true ones in prosperity.
-
I never do impressions, but I probably should. People like that stuff.
-
I hate fame. I hate being recognized, because I don't know how to talk to people.