John Lahr

“Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a substitute for the love you were missing in childhood.”

“The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.”

“Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.”

“Laughter is the mind sneezing.”

“A man who has no secrets from his wife either has no secrets or no wife.”

“To be a star is to own the world and all the people in it. After a while, this ownership becomes dull.”

“Life is a gesture, a constant proffer of words and acts and services.”

“If you know how to make people laugh, you have a lot of power.”

“The first responsibility of a writer is to be a good writer.”

“The audience is the other half of the performance.”

“Biography is a prism through which the lives of public figures are refracted into cultural history.”

“What we call personality is often a defensive structure, a carapace built to protect a vulnerable self.”