Andy Kaufman Quotes

What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality.

I see the world as an illusion, and we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously

Pure entertainment is not an egotistical lady singing boring songs onstage for two hours and people in tuxes clapping whether they like it or not. It's the real performers on the street who can hold people's attention and keep them from walking away.

When you go through a tunnel - you're going on a train - you go through a tunnel, the tunnel is dark, but you're still going forward. Just remember that. But if you're not going to get up on stage for one night because you're discouraged or something, then the train is going to stop. Everytime you get up on stage, if it's a long tunnel, it's going to take a lot of times of going on stage before things get bright again. You keep going on stage, you go forward. EVERY night you go on stage.

As they say in my country, the only thing that separates us from the animals is mindless superstition and pointless ritual.

There's no way to describe what I do. It's just me.

I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, 'Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules.' That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, 'Try it.' And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, 'No,' that's the time it works.

I never told a joke in my life.

My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didnt think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born, I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?

When I perform, it's very personal. I'm sharing things I like, inviting the audience into my room.

The critics try to intellectualize my material. There's no satire involved. Satire is a concept that can only be understood by adults. My stuff is straight, for people of all ages.

I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut - or get angry from the gut.

Whenever I play a role, whether it's good or bad, an evil person or nice person, I believe in being a purist and going all the way with the role. If I'm going to be a villainous wrestler, I believe in going all the way with it and not breaking character and not giving away to the audience that I'm playing a role. I believe in playing it straight to the hilt.

While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world.

Theres no drama like wrestling.

If I play my cards right, I could bring network wrestling back to TV. Unfortunately, to most people, wrestling is a laughingstock. But fortunately, I'm reaching people who otherwise wouldn't watch it.

That was part of the whole original concept. We were thinking, it's off-season, let's do a really fun, local-oriented event, raise money for good causes and bring some music to the valley.

We're hoping that this will also be the key to starting community events in a place where the whole community can come together. We've been working with the town on the total renovation.