In my experience it's not just that serious books get a hearing on comedy shows. But serious books get a serious hearing as well as a funny one on comedy shows.

When you are not treated seriously you develop comically. Its sense of oneself is so fractured and fragile that it's like the picked-on kid who has to become funny.

With Portlandia I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.

When I was in college I was in the theater department which for anyone who has been involved in any kind of theater program you know that it's really wacky and tight-knit a real family. Me and my good friends from college would do random shows and plays that were sometimes serious but most of the time really goofy and funny.

So often I read scripts and am like 'This would never happen in real life. It's not trying to be funny. It's trying to be serious.'

Sometimes I am so dry that people don't know I'm kidding and think I'm being serious. I enjoy this because their reactions are often funny.

If I'm in something funny I like to try and find some kind of serious line in it that people can relate to.

I'm not a very serious person. You know how they say that clowns are very funny in public and are really sad at home? I'm really kind of stupid at home and more serious in public.

Life is funny and it is interesting how we make it as serious as possible.

I've always found it easier to be funny than to be serious.

People say funny things all the time during really serious moments in life.

It's so funny because right now I'm very tired and my brains a little dead I tend to get very focused and serious. So I'm probably coming off a lot more like Scully right now.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny but working with him I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre he could be a very funny man to work with always telling jokes and holding court. Of course when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.

People never ask people doing serious music 'Do you ever think about doing funny music?'

Being a funny person does an awful lot of things to you. You feel that you mustn't get serious with people. They don't expect it from you and they don't want to see it. You're not entitled to be serious you're a clown.

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious it's hilarious.

Great big serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great big serious novel and a funny novel the funny novel is doomed.

The people I grew up around who I really liked were quick on the draw. It always just wowed me. And my mum would make weird funny comments. I can see in myself her self-deprecating hippie humour. I can't take myself too seriously.

You know how old I am? I'm so old I remember when Letterman used to be funny and it was presidents who were serious. That's how old I am.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.