Lorne Michaels Quotes

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Lorne Michaels

Profession : Producer

Birth : November 17, 1944

People go to the zoo and they like the lion because it's scary. And the bear because it's intense, but the monkey makes people laugh.

Lorne Michaels

You can't be perfect for 90 minutes.

Lorne Michaels

To me there's no creativity without boundaries. If you're gonna write a sonnet, it's 14 lines, so it's solving the problem within the container.

Lorne Michaels

Tearing up a picture of the Pope comes under the heading of a Comedy Killer. It kind of breaks the spirit of the evening.

Lorne Michaels

I was in Los Angeles in 1968, and I was fortunate enough to be a writer on 'Laugh-In' and a couple of other television shows.

Lorne Michaels

I grew up in a time where on things like 'The Red Skeleton Show' or even to a certain extent on 'The Carol Burnett Show,' people wrote in the breakouts or ad-libs. They were scripted to look spontaneous. So I always had a dislike of that kind of thing.

Lorne Michaels

One of the nice things about being busy is it makes you focus on what's important to you and how you use your time.

Lorne Michaels

I'm incredibly proud of the show 'Portlandia' that I do, but it's designed for an audience that just wants that and loves that.

Lorne Michaels

When Sinead O'Connor tore up the picture of the Pope, you could hear a pin drop. I didn't know it was coming, obviously, because at dress, she had held up a picture of Balkan orphans, which I thought was really meaningful and what she wanted to do.

Lorne Michaels

Could I get a friggin' Hot Pocket around here?

Lorne Michaels

I'm always very fearful when academics get ahold of comedy. Comedy is such a clear thing - people laugh, or they don't laugh. It's involuntary. I'm not saying it can't be scrutinized, it's just that they take the enjoyment out of it.

Lorne Michaels

It's better when they laugh, isn't it?

Lorne Michaels

You can tell a lot from someone's eyes.

Lorne Michaels

I think that Canadians have an incredible reverence for authority and regard for authority, and I think one of the healthy ways that it's challenged is through questioning it, through the polite hostility of comedy.

Lorne Michaels

Yeah, I love Los Angeles.

Lorne Michaels

I think Samantha Bee is doing a really good show.

Lorne Michaels

'Saturday Night Live' has always been, you know, non-partisan - whoever's in power should probably be challenged.

Lorne Michaels

There's nothing that sells stuff like television. Nothing.

Lorne Michaels

All saints are selfish.

Lorne Michaels

All babies are ugly unless they're your baby.

Lorne Michaels