Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.
[her] mind blackens. The blackness is not a thought, but if it could be pressed into a thought, if a chemical from a dropper could be dripped onto it causing its color and essence to become visible, i...
What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would t...
They told me to just act like myself. When I said, How do I do that? they said to just have fun with it, but I'm not sure what they meant.
There is nothing too mysterious about Ray Porter, at least not in the usual sense of the word. He is single, he is kind, he tries to do the right thing, and he does not understand himself, or women, o...
The woman speaks, stops, then after what must have been a long speech by the person on the other end of the line, says, ... just remember, darling, it is pain that changes our lives. Mirabelle cannot...
Sure, I've gotten some disbelieving stares when I've tried to explain this little habit of mine to, say, a bus seatmate. I've watched a guy adjust his posture, or get up and move back several rows, ev...
She has simply never quite learned to walk or hold herself comfortably
One day I was particularly gloomy, and Jim asked me what the matter was. I told him my high school girlfriend (for all of two weeks) had broken up with me. He said, Oh, that’ll happen a lot. The knowl...
Mirabelle, who never takes credit for her attractiveness, believes it is not she he is responding to, but rather something independent of her.
Mirabelle knows, and she lets this be unspoken, that all free things require conversation. Sitting in a darkened movie theatre requires absolutely no conversation at all, whereas a free date, like a w...
Lacey was just as happy alone as with company. When she was alone, she was potential; with others she was realized. Alone, she was self-contained, her tightly spinning magnetic energy oscillating arou...
It’s late. Need place to rehearse Dead Guy. I lie at bottom of stairs. Wife comes home. Do I break character? Never. She dials shrink.
I might not seem like the type who could sit at an outdoor cafe drinking a latte, but I am. Why? No motion required. It's just sitting. Sitting and sipping. I can't imagine a neurosis that would preve...
How’s the uh..uh..(look at palm) SCREENPLAY going… uh..uh..(racking brain) LESLIE NIELSEN. Yipes. Or:
At least Clarissa knows I'm benign. But that is not an adjective one wants to throw around about one's spouse: This is my husband. He's benign.
It is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.
'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is a good one because it not only turned out, I think, to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France, working with Glenne Head...
If there were a silent observer, Mirabelle would be seen as a carefree, happy girl who is preparing for a night on the town. But in reality, these activities are the physical manifestations of her sti...