Jon Lovitz quotes:

How much blow can Charlie Sheen do? Enough to kill two and a half men.

Woody is the guy who made me want to be a comic. I was in heaven and couldn't stop smiling because he was my idle and 29 years after seeing Take the Money and Run, I was working for him.

I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.

You're in front of an audience, but you're playing for a camera. There's this huge adrenaline rush, because you know that besides the audience in the studio, there are millions of people watching at home.

I like getting up in front of an audience. It's fun when you go to a baseball game and the crowd is cheering you. I can't deny it. And it's very funny, too. Sometimes you're shy; you go somewhere and everyone's looking at you, so you feel a little self-conscious.

I had done plays in high school. It was something I always wanted to do since I was little. I was a drama major at UC-Irvine.

Instead of making people victims of people who are successful, we should be telling people, 'Look, you are having a hard time, I feel bad for you. Let's look at what you're doing, let's teach you how to succeed. Let's give you the tools to succeed as opposed to turning everybody into victims.

You want everyone to be great and funny. I'm not saying I'm great, but I'm funny.

The whole - it's the economy's bad. It's bad for everybody. I have my own comedy club. I opened it three years ago in a horrible economy. I created jobs. And we just started breaking even after a year and a half, barely. For that entire time, I have had to pay the difference of what we owe in rent and taxes and everything out of my own pocket.

The problem with the economy isn't that people aren't paying their fair share of taxes.

It's rare when you're actually making a movie and it feels like you're watching a movie in the theater. You feel like a surfer in a wave, catching the wave, going for it every time, there's electricity in the room, it doesn't feel like acting, you ride the wave.

Nobody with a victim mentality will get anywhere, ever. They will never succeed.

Anybody can be going from being broke to being wealthy, as I did.

First of all, this whole idea of this one percent versus the 99 percent, it's a false statistic. There's nobody that is wealthy saying, let's go get the people that aren't. First of all, there's no versus. He's creating a false class warfare in a country where there is no class structure.

You, the actor, must be aware of when you're being funny, but the character you're playing should always be oblivious to the fact.

If I make a dollar and out of every dollar I'm taxed at 50, half, at 50 cents, I have to give, isn't that like enough?

I didn't take anything from anyone - first of all. Second of all, I opened a comedy club with money that I saved over 25 years. I created jobs.

Apparently, I said what a lot of people are thinking and a lot of people have thanked me.

But Opera Man, I go, 'Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of that?' Because I could sing fake opera pretty good.

If you build it, nerds will come.

I grew up very nice. But after college, my father said you're on you own. So I was dead broke for years. So I know what it's - I lived on 600 dollars a month for six years. I know what it's like to be dead broke. I feel bad for people who are struggling now.

Sometimes the best way to make 'em laugh is to show 'em how you honestly feel.

Some people, they got housing loans, and I think they're responsible for taking a loan they didn't qualify for?

I would say if you are having a tough time in your life, then going to a club and getting laughs, it does make you feel better for that hour and a half show. It gets your mind off of it.

My dad would always say, 'What can you do to make the world a better place?' Well, I can make people laugh.

I do see your point, but to me, I'm just a mouse compared to the President of the United States.

The director makes the movie. The director has to have the story in their head, has to know the style of the piece, has to answer questions from actors, design, set, lighting, every department throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production, because they've got it in their mind. They've got to know exactly what they want and what the style and story of the movie is. It's them. They make it.

Why do all these people want [comedians] to be serious? The reason they want that is these are people who aren't funny. Anybody funny can be serious, but people who have no sense of humor, they can never be funny - and frankly, they're jealous. There's very few comic actors. Think about it. There aren't that many. It's hard because you have to be able to do both.

At a certain point, if you work really hard and you get good and people like your work, you do deserve the fame - but you shouldn't take it for granted.

Movie acting is harder than doing a play. You have to be entertaining but completely natural, like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. They weren't doing anything. Do you have any idea how hard that is? That's how good they were. It's crazy hard to be convincing and real. It's the most subtle, hardest thing there is.

In comedy, you have to do all of the same stuff you do in drama and then put the comedy on top of it. You, the actor, are aware of the comedy but the character is oblivious. And you have to have a sense of humor.

I feel lucky that I'm working at all. I don't take any job for granted. I enjoy this. It's all enjoyable for me. It's all part of it.

It's fun to do something funny and have the director laughing. It makes you feel good.

I would never tell anyone who to vote for. I'm a different kind of 'liberal' and I think people should be true to themselves. If you're Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, you should be true to yourself and be who you are.

Do you wanna see something swell?

I don't want to talk about myself, that's for other people to say, so I'm not saying I was so talented.