Magicians From The United States

"Once I got into it, I (realized) in this medium, you can use musical theater to connect and make a dream come true, like fly on stage. Through stagecraft you can wow (the audience) and make them feel that sense of wonder. ... You’re singing, you’re dancing, and you’re performing a feat of wonder. I couldn’t stop thinking in those terms. There was so much potential."

"I’ve been lucky - I’ve dealt with, and studied with, VERY successful people, and it seems to me the more successful the performer, the less they have to hide, and the less they feel it necessary to make you feel bad about yourself or what you do. That’s true in many arenas, though – the more comfortable someone is in his or her own skin, the more they have to offer, and the more comfortable YOU feel while around them – you can actually connect and share as human beings. The pressure of trying to impress one another evaporates, because a mutual respect already exists."

"“What will people say?” “Who,” I asked, “is going to tell them?”"

"All of this did not take long, because when I argue with myself I always have the uncomfortable knowledge that I’m going to lose; therefore I do it fast to get it over with."

"The deadline was two months earlier, but like myself Mike considered deadlines in financial rather than chronological terms."

"Everybody seemed to be in show business; what the hell had happened to the audience?"

"Let’s set a precedent and try to approach this thing logically."

"“I opposed this (the invasion of Earth),” it (the alien) continued, “having doubts about the validity or usefulness of this continued aggression. In opposing it I was, of course, opposing the Pattern, and for a Triskan to do this was what you would call blasphemy.” “Don’t feel bad,” I interjected. “Most everyone on this planet is ready to kill and destroy for their local god.” “Yes,” the 3V agreed, “and almost without exception, the other races and civilization we have encountered have been quite ready to do violence of all kinds to their fellow sharers of life, so long as they could claim to be doing the will of a higher power, be it a god or a government.”"

"I’m giving up everything I can’t stand for Lent."

"Jake was being Subtle, which was only laughable; when he was straightforward he was incomprehensible."

"Both time and reality have always been regarded suspiciously in the Village, and various pharmaceutical concoctions are purveyed to those who wish to circumvent them."

"We were getting very good at pauses. This one, while not quite pregnant, had certainly been fooled around with."

"We’re taught in the Jewish tradition the same story over and over, whether it’s the Holocaust or the Maccabees, we have to rise above persecution and do our best, just as the magic is about making people dream, we learned to take things that aren’t supposed to be and turn them into something beautiful."

"I want to tell you why I did this. My mother was the first one to tell me about the Statue of Liberty. She saw at first from the deck of the ship that brought her to America: she was an immigrant. She impressed upon me how precious our liberty is and how easily it can be lost. And then one day it occurred to me that I could show with magic how we take our freedom for granted. Sometimes we don't realize how important something is until it's gone. So I asked our government for permission to let me make the Statue of Liberty disappear... just for a few minutes. I thought that if we faced emptiness where, for as long as we can remember, that great lady is, lifted up our land, why then... we might imagine what the world would be like without liberty and we realize how precious our freedom really is. And then I will make the Statue of Liberty reappear, by remembering the world that made it appear in the first place. The world is freedom. Freedom is the true magic. It's beyond the power of any magician. But wherever one human being guarantees another the same rights he or she enjoys, we find freedom. [The curtain between the live audience and the Statue of Liberty used to hide the secret of its disappearance is raised] How long can we stay free? But just as long as we keep thinking, and speaking, and acting as free human beings. Our ancestors just couldn’t. We can. And I will show you the way. Nooooow! [The curtain is lowered and the Statue of Liberty reappears]"

"Nelson Mandela? What a cunt. Terry Waite? Bastard. I dunno, you lend some people a fiver, you never see them again."

"I used to think I was great in bed until I discovered that all my girlfriends suffered from asthma."

"I'm actually a bisexual necrophiliac - I'll shag anything that doesn't move."

"How do you give a woman an orgasm? Who cares!"

"My mother thinks I'm at Kings cross right now buying drugs off a prostitute. If she knew I was on the BBC, she'd kill me."

"Hello moose-fuckers! You know what I hate about this country? Half of you speak French and the other half let them."

"Sadowitz is a very different act from Gervais and Carr: low status, stubbornly niche, the connoisseur's misanthrope. I dislike boorish comedy that punches down for kicks, and I appreciate it can be hard to spot the difference when an act only seems to be doing so – especially when they're quoted out of context amid a hysterical media storm. But writing about the offensive comedy debate, Sadowitz has long been my go-to exemplar: if you're as skilful as he is, if you take the pains he takes to contextualise the material, you can be as brutally unpleasant as you like without censure."

"My idea of Comic Relief is switching Victoria Wood off."

"I only hate two things - living things, and objects."

"The magic of drama is infinitely more powerful than the magic of trickery. It is as available to the conjurer as it is to the actor. The only difference is that actors take it for granted, whereas few conjurers are even aware that it exists."

"I’m just really grateful and lucky that I get to keep existing in this business and existing by way of working as opposed to just being around the scene. So I love the process of making all of this. Being on set at the Sesame Workshop was one of the great things of last year for me. Getting just to work with Joss Whedon [on Dr.Horrible] for six days renegade-style was just unbelievable. Every week getting these new scripts and seeing what Barney Stinson gets to say and do is like a constant Christmas present. Things are swell."

"My job is jester -- not advocate. I’m on a situation comedy responding to [Josh Radnor’s character] Ted Mosby and his wacky adventures -- that’s my job right now. If people want to comment about where I go to dinner, they are welcome to, but it’s not my job to respond to those statements. The Internet stuff threw me for a loop because I didn’t understand where the vitriol was coming from. I thought I had been representing well, and in turn it seemed like I was quickly condemned to step to the plate, and I was fine with that."

"Playing gay in the theater is more fulfilling than on film because you can create a whole character and a backstory and you get to chip away at something over a long period of time. When you’re acting on film you sort of have one afternoon in front of a crew to just do it. And you don’t want to then be too overt and like that stereotype. But when I was doing A Paris Letter with Josh [Radnor], I was playing someone overtly flamboyant from the ’60s seducing him, and if I did that on film, I think it would look like I was acting too hard. It’s one of the fun things one wants to do as an actor, to play the flamboyant gay guy. But when you are gay that ends up being offensive to people. Say I was asked to play a flamboyant steward in an Airplane!–type farce. It would be a difficult decision to say yes to that role at this point because a lot of people would accuse me of making a mockery of gay people."

"[on being LGBT in show business] People in the business are equally as terrified now -- but I really find it a personal thing. And maybe I’m at the end of that era. I wouldn’t even want to stereotype today’s generation. But the majority of the casting departments are gay, and a lot of the executives are. I think it’s a matter of your abilities and how you carry yourself -- I don’t behave any differently toward you right now than when I am with David [Burtka, his boyfriend] in our apartment, watching "American Idol." OK, "So You Think You Can Dance." [Laughs] I can see why an agent wouldn’t want to sign on a real overtly effeminate male actor -- not because I have an aversion to them but because agents might know it limits their job opportunities."

"There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs, there'd be no place to put it all."

"Noise pollution is a relative thing. In a city it's a jet plane taking off. In a monastery it's a pen that scratches."

"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."

"Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?"

"Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some of the smaller countries are neutral."

"Humor is the most honest of emotions. Applause for a speech can be insincere, but with humor, if the audience doesn't like it there's no faking it."

"Nowadays, you cannot be a very Effective political figure without Having a demonstrable sense of humor. People take to it."

"The secret of writing comedy is to know where it's all going, then get ahead of it."

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in."

"The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal probably eats better than 30 percent of the people in the world."

"Anybody with a good sense of humor is one-up on their competition. We respond to somebody who has the ability to make us laugh. It's a bonding influence."

"If somebody accuses you in a story of being a crook, you can demand that they prove it. But if a comic says it and you protest, people say, 'What's the matter, you can't take a joke?'"

"George Bush has turned into the playboy of the Western world. He shows up at Chinese restaurants, at movies, at the Kennedy Center. He seems to be a totally relaxed, enjoy-the-moment kind of individual. He has shown a sense of playfulness that is very appealing. It shows he isn't overwhelmed by the overwhelming responsibilities he is taking on."

"Humor starts like a wildfire, but then continues on, smoldering, smoldering for years."

"Dick Cheney has to be the kindliest attack dog ever."

"If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters."

"Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure."

"Humor is a marvelous communications tool, as Reagan has demonstrated so well. He has weathered many a storm that others might not have. With Reagan, people just say, 'There he goes again.' A sense of humor allows a president to back off a little from the tensions of the moment and take a calmer view of things."

"A young person today has a nanosecond attention span, so whatever you do in a humor has to be short. Younger people do not wait for anything that takes time to develop. We're going totally to one-liners. Telling a joke is risk taking. Younger people are more insecure and not willing to put themselves on the line, so a quick one-liner is much safer."

"Humor gives presidents the chance to be seen as warm, relaxed persons. Humor reaches out and puts its arm around the listener and says, 'I am one of you, I understand,' and implicitly it promises, 'I will do something about your problems.'"

"I'd be surprised if Ronald Reagan doesn't run again. To us it's a second term. To him it's a double feature."

"It always seems to someone outside the business that it is very difficult to write for a comedy show because it must be done quickly. Actually, it is much easier to write this humor than to do a joke or a show from scratch, because the audience knows the plot. Just mention what is going on and then deliver the punch line."