David Steinberg Quotations

The one thing an audience always has in common with a comedian is troubles. The Yiddish word for that is tsuris. You're always putting your tsuris on stage whether you like it or not. No one is untroubled, unless they're just, you know, an imbecile.

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.

I starred in a Broadway play that was Sidney Poitier's first directing job and the cast was Lou Gossett, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ladd and I played a Jewish kid who offered himself as a slave to two Columbia University students as reparations.

I started writing this feature comedy in New York - a Chris Farley vehicle. The script was decent. When I got to LA, I met some new friends in film school and had them read my script and give me notes.

And it was a huge emotional thing to leave the law and become unemployed - to be a student again.

My father was a rabbi and had a little synagogue in Canada, so I'm from Canada. I left there at 16.

Comedians talk to other comedians the way jazz musicians can talk to each other.

I rewrote it and I took all your notes. Read it again, that kind of persistence paid off.

Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.

Here's the rule that I set for myself, and I believe it - even on a show like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm': the more personal you are, the wider your audience.

The interesting thing about improvisation is you're making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that'll separate you from the audience.

A spontaneous interview feels differently than anything else you see on television.

I don't really dissect comedy. Nothing kills off humor more than overanalyzing it.

I don't believe any particular ethnic group is smarter than any other group.

The odd thing about comedy is that the more personal you are, the larger the audience.

Being a lawyer in New York sucks because you're working eighty, sometimes a hundred hours a week.

Great Canadian comics are often outsiders and insiders at the same time. That's a great perspective for a comedian.

My influences were Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.

The worst thing that can happen to a comedian is to do a documentary on your life and you're watching it with an audience and there's not a laugh.

We were the guys on the other side. It was hilarious.

When I started, you didn't make a lot of money by being a comedian. You didn't get a lot of respect.

When I talk to Steve Martin, he's joyful when he talks about comedy.

You don't need to be stable to be a stand-up comedian.

Your relationship with an agent has got to be mutually beneficial. If you can't help their careers, then they're not going to be interested.

On 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' it takes almost a year to get 10 shows written. It always reminds me of my old yeshiva days, where you used to sit over a piece of Talmud and analyze everything that was going on.

In comedy, looking back is more important than looking around at your contemporaries because they are too much influenced by the same time period as you are.

We're saving consumers money three ways. We save them an average of $125 on the phone itself. We save them 20% to 40% by mapping their usage patterns to rate plans available in the market. And we save them by setting up accounts in under five minutes.

But this phenomenal thing happens - even though you are the same guy with the same script - when you have a producer attached.

You are the holding action against the Americans until the Chinese come to our aid,

We're disaggregating the cost of running thousands of retail stores. Carriers look at us as a low-cost distribution strategy.

These stocks are very manic, either over-extended on the high side or under-extended on the low side, ... As of late, cancer stocks have done quite well.

The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.

An initial launch of this kind of product by any of the companies would certainly be very successful.

The whole idea of doing the Hollywood thing never even occurred to me. When you grow up on the East coast, Hollywood seems like this fantasy land and you don't think that people can actually make a living there.

It's an unfortunate situation. I wish there was another way I could figure this out.

Not only did he unfairly become a prime suspect of an investigation into your alleged injuries that day, but he was denied any normalcy in his school life thereafter, and felt too uncomfortable about returning to school, ... Consequently, he missed a lot of his last year of high school, which should have been a good and positive time in his life.

Not only did he become a prime suspect ... but he was denied any normalcy in his school life afterwards,

I keep hearing the same thing all the time, ... Look, we don't need you guys. We can go it alone. We've done it before, and so what's new?

India's engagement is purely self- interested. But, along with the engagement of the rest of the world, it could help to change things in Burma, though it will take a long time. Sanctions and isolationism just mean that the military backs into itself and gets xenophobic.

I do not believe for a moment that you are evil or that you don't feel a deep sense of personal regret and even sorrow over the poor judgment you exercised on Nov. 3, 2003, ... I have considered and rejected the notion that sending you to jail will serve the legitimate sentencing goals of rehabilitation or deterrence. It is also not necessary to send you to jail for public safety reasons or for retribution sake alone. I will not do that.