In the world of late-night comics, Letterman made us feel any hometown boy from Indianapolis could poke fun at celebrities and politicians and do it right to their faces.
'The David Letterman Show' is a show of comedy.
Sure, losing an election hurts, but I've experienced worse. And at an age when every day is precious, brooding over what might have been is self-defeating. In conceding the 1996 election, I remarked that "tomorrow will be the first time in my life I don't have anything to do." I was wrong. Seventy-two hours after conceding the election, I was swapping wisecracks with David Letterman on his late-night show.
The idea that I would ever end up on David Letterman or Jay Leno is horrifying. I am such a freak in comparison to most other twenty-five-year-old guys. I have no idea what other people are thinking. I’m not really in touch.
Baseball may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots in the American experience. Since the founding of our country, citizens from Ben Franklin to David Letterman have made fun of their elected officials.
The main problem is just that people think that other people care about them way more than they do. Anything that you do, that requires anyone to do an ounce of work that's about you, is a mistake. Because unless you are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or David Letterman, or just a really, really giant celebrity, or you're maybe at the center of a media storm where everyone is trying to get in touch with you, people don't want to have to do any work to remember who you are, what you're selling, or what your website is.
There were a bunch of moments that kept cascading. Like, when we got an opportunity to play "Letterman", it gave us an opportunity to step up. It feels good to shed that skin and rise out of it.
I'd been on everybody else's show and there was always a preinterview. Somebody would come with a tape recorder and you'd talk for three or four hours, and they'd take it back and it would be transcribed, and it would be given to the writers, those many writers you see on all those shows, Larry King, Letterman, Leno, etc. And then they choose the answers that will be most evocative on their show.
I'm not sure about that role any longer. The role used to be to mix things up and I think to a great extent it still is, but the quality of the work of the political cartoon has been succeeded by the wisecrack, the gag cartoon, so that the cartoonist becomes more of the equivalent of the Jay Leno monologues, or David Letterman monologues.
Jerry Seinfeld, he was doing Letterman show all the time, so he kind of had an excuse, that people know the jokes already. He didn't have time to do stand-up. A guy like me, I have no excuses.
I think comedy is on an organic upsurge right now because when I started, it was 1978 at The Comedy Store and Letterman had just stopped emceeing his morning show.
Never tell 'em how many lettermen you've got coming back. Tell 'em how many you lost.
Everybody gets inspired by different things. I grew up wanting to go up the street with a video camera because I liked watching David Letterman yell out of the ninth floor of Rockefeller Center with a megaphone at people on the street. I thought that was a riot.
I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn't quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.
I want to be the Letterman of metal. I want five nights a week, Monday to Friday, 11 to 12, live. I always shoot for the moon.
Cookies at both of them. The cookies are probably better at Letterman though.
We will try to honor David Letterman achievement by doing the best show we can.And occasionally making the network very mad at us.
Half the stuff I've written was written when I was half asleep watching the David Letterman show when some boring actress was on talking about herself. I would just mute the TV, look over to the computer and start plugging in notes. Then the next morning you go "Wow, I like this". I'd almost forget what I did, and then it would inspire me to go on and do the next thing. That's what I do. Just kind of follow my own little thing.
Between me and my wife, there's this joke where I'll be doing some fun interview, and I'll get off the phone and be like, "That guy was an idiot." A lot of times, interviews are like being asked a list of questions. Invariably, there will be this part where they think you're a writer for Letterman: "Just off the top of your head, tell me the 10 most influential bands on you." And you're actually asked to come up with a spontaneous list. It's like, "Dude, I'm not living in High Fidelity."
I feel good about being able to take bluegrass on to television like 'Letterman' and 'The View,' and I've heard nice things about being able to do that. I really haven't felt any negativity toward me or my music.
I mean, if they're doing a television show every night like Jon Stewart, or Ellen, or David Letterman, then they have their bunch of people who are sitting on a payroll someplace, who are coming up with material every day of the week. Those are the people who wind up doing the bulk of the work for them when they host the thing, because that's their team.
I was told David Letterman and Kaufman had heart attacks on the same day: David Letterman's heart attack was at a hospital in NYC. Kaufman's heart attack was at the red light district in Amsterdam, Holland. I think Kaufman had more fun. You're a great artist. I just love the way you painted my portrait.
Describing life out of the public eye to David Letterman, December 6th, 1996 It's been different. I started driving again. I started cooking again. My driving's better than my cooking. George has discovered Sam's Club.
Never name it after yourself. Maybe we'll throw a with in there. That seems to work. Like Late Show With David Letterman.
Some people are just really goofy kind of guitar acts, and they go out and do these colleges and start making a fortune pretty early on. And other people - I know guys who are great comics, who've done the Letterman show many times, who still barely pay their bills.
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