Dana Carvey Quotes

I did a lot of ridiculous television. Between 1980 and '85 I had no confidence, so I did everything I was told to do.

I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.

I tried to go out for theater or theater arts, but I was too scared or too intimidated. But I had a lot of friends on the cross country team that had great senses of humor.

I got lucky. I won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in 1977 while I was still at San Francisco State.

The two things that can hurt you are if you need money or if you need fame. Those are the things that can be your Achilles heel. But if you don't need money and you don't need fame, then you're free.

I really enjoy being a dad, and maybe I took it too seriously, but I love being around my kids.

I have no regrets. I wanted to raise the kids and be a present father. When I developed a movie, I was gone for a year. That didn't really work for me. That isn't fair to make these life-forms and then disappear.

I think ABC sort of hoped I would be really like Carol Burnett. I mean literally, I think.

You know, Elizabeth Taylor must be in Heaven going, 'Alright, fire two honey!'

I had auditioned for 'Saturday Night Live' two or three times before and never really saw myself there. I looked up to Belushi and Bill Murray and Aykroyd and I never saw myself as in their world.

This movie will actually increase the sex life of parents everywhere because they can put this on, with the 45 minutes of extras and they've got almost two hours to do whatever they've got to do while the kids watch the movie.

If you just kind of live a regular life and make good 'Hollywood' money, you have a certain freedom.

Am I not turtley enough for the Turtle Club? Turtle! Turtle!

I'm more of a people pleaser.

I couldn't do any of my other characters, you know? But I could have done the lady. Church Lady's Malibu Beach party is an idea I have for a movie, too. Yes.

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

Well, I loved variety in television, I loved sketch comedy. At 'Saturday Night Live,' I stayed almost seven years.

I don't find biology as interesting as politics and humanism. I talk more about existential stuff.

You know, sometimes you can't just take an armadillo, put it in the barn, light it on fire and expect it to make licorice.

We didn't even think about it, you know? I used to collect laser discs, and you'd have some college professor analyzing It's a Wonderful Life or Citizen Kane, and now it is pretty funny - the idea of commentary for a silly kid's movie, you know?

My Obama is getting pretty good ... I think I'll vote for whoever makes my portrayal easier. It takes time to put together a comic impression. It takes time to recognize the tics. Right now, for instance, I could do a dead- on Paul Ryan and people wouldn't recognize it. Personalities take a while to sin ...

While many comics have a secret persona, I fundamentally want to be myself.

When people come to see my stand-up, they get a chance to see my characters interact with each other.

I know it's a cliche, but the whole family is just whacked. I mean, we're all out of our minds. They're the funniest, most eccentric bizarre people I've ever met, my siblings.

Describing comic sensibility is near impossible. It's sort of an abstract silliness, that sometimes the joke isn't the star.