Norm MacDonald

Actor

1963-10-17

Quotes by Norm MacDonald

• I would love to stay at SNL forever. But you can't stay in the same place. People think you're a loser.

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• I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio.

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• I just like doing standup, that's all I'm interested in or good at.

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• My dad had this thing - everyone in Canada wants to play hockey; that's all they want to do. So when I was a kid, whenever we skated my dad would not let us on the ice without hockey sticks, because of this insane fear we would become figure skaters!

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• In math, you could get 100 percent. It was very fair. That's what I liked about math. You could figure it out, and the teacher couldn't have a stupid opinion about it.

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• Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

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• I sort of try to write everything for me. I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio. I'm trying to make sure the jokes are self-contained so they're accessible to everyone.

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• It got very tedious saying the same jokes in the same way with the same attitude.

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• When I hear a guy lost a battle to cancer, that really did bother me, that that's a term. It implies that he failed and that somebody else that defeated cancer is heroic and courageous.

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• When I was young, I'd watch guys on 'The Tonight Show', Buddy Hackett, guys like that, where all they'd be is funny. Later, I remember, on 'Late Night with Letterman', I remember he'd have Jay Leno and Richard Lewis as first guests and the entire point was to entertain and be funny, and I think talk shows have kind of lost that.

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• I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it's very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I'm not a great actor, so if the material isn't good, I'm in torment while I do it.

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• I miss seeing real comics, Shecky Greene and Buddy Hackett, those types. I like straight stand-up, talking about the Olympics and why I feel obligated to watch them. 'Why am I watching archery at 4 in the afternoon?'

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• I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.

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• I just hate plugs. It just doesn't seem entertaining to me. I've never plugged anything in my life on a talk show ever. I understand people use that vehicle. It's just not very entertaining.

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• Stand-up has the best writers, because it's the hardest writing by a million miles.

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