My mom is two people to me. She's my mom number one and then she's this lady most comedians know as being a legendary owner of a nightclub that's responsible for starting a lot of heavy careers.

I used to have a theory actually that if you've had a good childhood a good marriage and a little bit of money in the bank you're going to make a lousy comedian.

To my knowledge I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.

I thought they may have presumed too much knowledge of certain things for people who are not comedians. Like Montreal. A comic understands what it is and its importance but someone else may not know about it.

When I see a good singer I get teary-eyed. Part of it is jealousy because all comedians are frustrated rock stars. That's a fact.

Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me.

I think humor is important for all of us and a great comedian is a great treasure.

Every time I've done comedy in like traditional comedy clubs there's always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they're just you know doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing like very kind of base sex humor a lot and stuff like that.

You can't do anything to be funny. That's cringeworthy. If your humor comes out of a place of love every time you don't make the joke bigger than you. The funniest comedians are in touch with their emotional level.

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