Persons [ ] Curb Your Enthusiasm | Larry David

Larry David

“It’s always good to take something that’s happened in your life and make something of it comedically.”

“It has to do – I think – with growing up in an apartment, with my aunt and my cousins right next door to me, with the door open, with neighbors walking in and out, with people yelling at each other all the time.”

“Until I started doing standup, there were some very bleak days.”

“At first, I didn’t realize it was gonna be a character. I just thought I was gonna be doing me.”

“And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.”

“You write about what you know.”

“I can’t stand reading anything that I’ve said.”

“When I was living in New York, there was a lot of screaming in my life. I would just get into these altercations all the time. Being in public, dealing with shopkeepers, just trying to cross the street – things like that.”

“My defensiveness in life really helps me as a driver.”

“I don’t like people cleaning my room.”

“I don’t have many friends.”

“I don’t like to be out of my comfort zone, which is about a half an inch wide.”

“When I’m in social situations I always hold onto my glass. It makes me feel comfortable and secure, and I don’t have to shake hands.”

“Most people are completely unaware of their breath. They violate your space, they have no idea that they have halitosis.”

“I’d rather have the thieves than the neighbors – the thieves don’t impose. Thieves just want your things, neighbors want your time. I’d rather give them things than time.”

“What is this compulsion to have people over at your house and serve them food and talk to them?”

“I don’t like talking to people I know, but strangers I have no problem with.”

“I don’t take on big things. What I do, pretty much, is make the big things small and the small things big.”

“When I was living in New York and didn’t have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I’d think, that’ll be good, that’ll be a good spot for me when I’m homeless.”

“When you’re not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom.”

“Every relationship is just so tenuous and precarious.”

“If you tell the truth about how you’re feeling, it becomes funny.”

“I still think of that guy I was without a wife or kids, and I still want to entertain that guy. The lonely guy, the frustrated guy, the guy with no money – this is the guy who needs to laugh.”

“Whenever something good happens to me, it’s usually followed by something terrible.”

“You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people and assholes.”

“Trying on pants is one of the most humiliating things a man can suffer that doesn’t involve a woman.”

“Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m Jewish.”

“I’m a walking, talking enigma.”

“I like to be quiet, and let people find me rather than having to shout at them.”

“Switzerland is a place where they don’t like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.”

“I’m surprised sometimes at how some of my actions are misinterpreted.”

“You have to discover when you’re inadequate.”

“A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied.”

“Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.”

“Most of the time I’m thinking, I’m glad that scene was improvised.”

“Hear the birds? Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m deaf and I try to imagine what it’s like not to be able to hear them. It’s not that bad.”

“I’m cranky.”

“If I wasn’t a golfer, I would still be miserable – but not as miserable.”

“I think golf is literally an addiction. I’m surprised there’s not Golf Anonymous.”

“Golf and dating don’t mix.”

“Well, after the divorce, I went home and turned all the lights on!”

“I go out to dinner, I wind up I with a homework assignment.”

“A date is an experience you have with another person that makes you appreciate being alone.”

“I have no secrets.”

“I don’t like to say anything good. I feel like I’ll jinx myself.”

“OK, I’m happy. I’m happy. All right? I’m happy.”

Larry David

(b 1947) comedian

Seinfeld, 1989-1998, tv sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, 2000-2024, tv comedy created by Larry David. David stars as a fictionalized version of himself.