Harry Shearer Quotes

There Were Really Funny Characteristics About This Guy [richard Nixon], Chief Of Which Would Be That He Seemed To Devote About 85 Percent Of His Waking Energy To Suppressing Any Sign Of His Emotional Response To Anything That Was Going On Around Him, And The Other 15 Percent Blurting Out Those Authentic Responses In The Silliest And Most Inopportune Ways. And He Had These Smiles That Would Come At The Most Inappropriate Times - Just Flashes That There Was An Inner Life Screaming To Get Out.

I Think The British Learn Their History Through The Prism Of This Gallery Of Grotesques Known As The Royals.

I've Been Doing Nixon Pretty Much My Whole Professional Life. I Was In This Comedy Group Called The Credibility Gap In Los Angeles When He Was President. I Was Doing Nixon On The Radio, And When We Did Live Shows I Physicalized Him - If That's A Word - For The First Time. And Then I Did A Nixon Sketch On A Very Short-lived Nbc Show Called Sunday Best.

Here's A Guy [richard Nixon] Who Had No Gift For Small Talk, Never Liked To Be Around Strangers, Was Physically Awkward, And He Goes Into The One Business That Calls For Ease With Strangers And A Gift For Small Talk.

For A Guy Who Is Always Banging On About The Masculine Virtues, Nixon Had This Remarkable Proclivity For Very Dainty Gestures.

I Just Think Everyone Knows You Go On Those [political Satire] Shows If You're A Politician To, "humanize Yourself" - To Show, "hey, I Can Take A Joke." Well, Why Should Satire Be In The Service Of Humanizing These People Who Are Supposed To Be The Target Of Our Venom And Vitriol? I Think That's Unseemly.

Anybody Who Says That Having The Public Recognize Them And Relate To The Work They Do Is Irritating Should Get Into Another Line Of Work. You're In This Business For People To Know What You Do And Like It.

Music Can Happen With Equal Ease As A Solo Or Collaborative Venture, It Seems To Me.

I Think In Most Cases, If You're With Good People, Comedy Creation Happens Faster In Collaboration. That's How I Can Tell If It's A Good Collaboration: If It's Faster Than Me By Myself, Then It Works. If It's Slower Than Me By Myself, Then I Get Out Of The Room.

Sometimes, Songs Spill Out Of You Very Fast, And Sometimes You Have To Wrangle Them To The Floor. But The Same Thing Is True Of Comedy, Where Sometimes It Really Flows.

I Happened Upon A Memoir By A Midlevel White House Staffer, And He Had Been In The Room That [nixon's Last] Night [in Office]. This Guy's Memoir Told Me What Nixon's Last Words Were. And They Were, On August 8, 1974, To The Crew: "have A Merry Christmas, Fellas!" That Was Just So Bizarre.

I Couldn't Help But Be Struck That This Guy I Had Thought Was The Embodiment Of Everything Wrong With American Politics, A Lot Of His Domestic Policy Was Mind-numbingly, Head-spinningly To The Left Of Obama's. It Was Under Nixon That The Epa Was Created. It Was Under Nixon That Osha Was Created. Under Nixon That The Clean Air And Clean Water Acts Were Passed.