Jerry Seinfeld on Mind

"I think it's a dangerous thing for comedians to mature or-- too much. And my wife will tell you I'm doing a fantastic job of not maturing too much."

"I was lucky in that I was introduced to fame very-- in a very slow, incremental way."

"I think it's very strange that men like dogs and women like cats because women want attention and men want to be left alone, it should be the complete opposite."

"Funniest" is completely personal. Whoever you think is funniest, is funniest."

"One of the things that the comedian mindset requires is laziness."

"I think that comedy is the be-all and end-all."

"Have you noticed the popularity of Ultimate Fighting and The Real Housewives? These two things are two weights on the same barbell. What it is, I think, is the worst aspects of each gender exaggerated to the maximum."

"I have this image in my mind of what a comedian's supposed to be... that I'm always trying to live up to, and that I always fall short of. I'm the show for the night. I have to make that evening work for those people."

"I don't separate the mind and the body, as a thing. If my body's tired, my mind's tired; if my mind's tired, my body's tired. People say "Mind and body! Mind and body!", and that-- and I dismiss that separation completely."

"Do you think if they only made one Hangover -- and didn't make the other two -- it would be considered a comedy classic? Do you think that you destroyed what would have been a comedy classic, by the cash grab of II and III?"

"The thing that's great about kids is: they don't care what you think is great. Everything you like, they've got to take the other side. That's the great balancing thing of kids: they're not impressed with anything you're impressed with."

"You have the Sun-Maid company, and then you have the Raisinet people. I just think it's interesting that after 80 years, Sun-Maid finally went "Hey, why don't we put some chocolate on it?" Like, imagine not thinking of that for 80 years!"

"Larry and I were so good together , if we both thought something was funny, that was good enough. That's it. If it can get through those two filters, and we both think "That's funny", I don't even-- I wouldn't even care if it wasn't funny."

"Bee Movie was a very unhappy experience, from start to finish. I remember standing in the back of the theater and it wasn't great, but it was decent and, and I remember listening to their laughs and thinking, These laughs are shit. That was not worth it."

"The idea of , honestly, was to try and create something that fit a whole new medium. I really was thinking "What would be a good TV show for a phone?" That was really where I started. And I thought "This would be fun for a phone, 'cause you don't have to follow a story."

"Now they show you how detergents get out bloodstains on television: pretty violent image, there! I think if you've got a T-shirt with bloodstains all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem right now. Maybe you ought to get rid of the body before you do the wash."

"My first bit that I thought "That's a real bit!" was about the tramway between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island. 1976: the city was going bankrupt. I go "Oh! That's great! They're putting up rides for us! Next thing, I guess they'll be putting up a rollercoaster through the ghetto!"

"It really is funny, it's very easy for me to remember that was very unsuccessful for a number of years, the first 4 years, and I remember thinking "I don't know why people don't seem to like this, it seems so funny to me." But I never thought it was going to be a big success. But it worked out."

"Most of the time, comedians: we are expected to be the most agile, in terms of how we think and construct our thoughts and our-- what comes out of our mouth. That's how we got the job. Y'know? So, I'm not really worried about comedians as a group. We have been navigating these slalom gates forever."

"Monkeys have contributed a lot to society in their way. They were the first astronauts in the Sixties. Which I'm sure made perfect sense in the monkey brain. "I see, so instead of the little bellhop uniform, you want me to get into a rocket and orbit the earth at supersonic speed. Yeah, I think that is the next logical step for me."

"I've already done something, and reminded me of that. And now, this-- I really just want to do what I love to do... and I want to go where he's gone. Y'know? I want to be able to explore this thing and maybe find some-- That's what I keep thinking: that maybe there's something else out there! I just feel like I can go somewhere with it. I don't know where."

"knew they were talking to odd guys, y'know? Larry and I were odd guys. So they wouldn't come in-- They-- Y'know, I mean, they would come in and pitch, and obviously, some things would hit, and some things would miss, but they never thought "This is too crazy for these guys." Nobody would think that... 'cause clearly, we were capable of just about anything!"

"It is amazing what people will believe. I mean, I've watched these infomercials late at night: if it gets late enough, the products start to look good to me. I have actually found myself sitting there thinking "Y'know... I don't think I have a knife that can cut through a shoe..." "I don't think any of my knives are good enough to cut through shoes!" "I'm gonna get this knife and cut my shoes up."

"I think the best Seinfeld episode idea I ever contributed was that George pretending to be a marine biologist would find Kramer's golf ball in the blowhole of the whale. Believe it or not, we were doing both of those stories without seeing any connection that Kramer was gonna hit golf balls at the beach, and George was gonna be pretending to be a marine biologist. And it was in the middle of the week that it suddenly hit me of a way to connect the two stories."

"I get an idea, and I think "There's something funny about that." And I don't know what it is, at first; this is how my stuff usually works. Like, I saw-- like, McDonald's having a sign that says "60 Billion ". And I think "Now, that's-- y'know, there's something very funny about that: that a company of that size is still counting every burger. Y'know? I mean, there's some kind of insecurity there, that you're still thinking "How well-- Are we doing well?" "We're doing well. Aren't we doing well? Look at how many we've sold!"