Top 50 Colin Quinn Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “My name has zero value.”

— Colin Quinn

2. “People say history is boring, and that is true because people are boring. We haven’t changed since time began. We’re still the same.”

— Colin Quinn

3. “I love people, I love studying people more than history. So whatever situation I see, then I look at, what were the people like, more than history itself.”

— Colin Quinn

4. “It was tumultuous, it was crazy, but I would not trade it for anything.”

— Colin Quinn

5. “The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don’t tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either.”

— Colin Quinn

6. “I think Helen of Troy must have been pretty hot. She got two countries going crazy for 10 years over her.”

— Colin Quinn

7. “I know nowadays the common wisdom is to celebrate diversity as long as you don’t point out that people are different.”

— Colin Quinn

8. “People say history was written by the winners. No, it wasn’t. It was written by the bullies.”

— Colin Quinn

9. “Humanity is a crazy contradiction. I accept us for who we are. We’re not that great. Every time we take a step forward we go back to the same primitive behavior. We’re meant to be this way. It’s not our fault, it’s just who we are.”

— Colin Quinn

10. “I think people tend to feel odd when I do my act. Unless you are an ironic person, it’s not a good place for you to be.”

— Colin Quinn

11. “I’m just another guy who thinks he’s smarter than he is, in a long line of them.”

— Colin Quinn

12. “The only people who like to live alone more than comics are priests.”

— Colin Quinn

13. “You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There’s no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you’re finished. It’s impossible to predict anything.”

— Colin Quinn

14. “I think everyone should own six guns, even though I don’t own any.”

— Colin Quinn

15. “I would say most comedians have a very cynical worldview of the way the world can work. It’s almost like if you didn’t, you couldn’t be a comedian.”

— Colin Quinn

16. “So instead of talking about theoretical ways of ending the war and violence, I say that we have to get rid of the individual asholes in each office and situation.”

— Colin Quinn

17. “Marie Antoinette was funny, I’m sure she was just misinterpreted. You know the ‘Let them eat cake’ line. She seems like she was kind of funny, like a Chelsea Handler or Kathy Griffin type.”

— Colin Quinn

18. “People’s – most people’s job is talking about the future or like money not even in the present tense. It’s not even paper.”

— Colin Quinn

19. “Everybody’s funny in different ways.”

— Colin Quinn

20. “I feel most empires fell when they started to act human, but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand, and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can’t sustain it.”

— Colin Quinn

21. “A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what’s being said is the party line.”

— Colin Quinn

22. “Thank God for immigrants. They’re the only ones who have any personality left. They still allow themselves emotions, judgments, and all those qualities that we are “evolving” past. I don’t know what they’re saying, but I can tell they’re speaking honestly.”

— Colin Quinn

23. “The Vikings thought they were big shots because they had boats. You know how obnoxious people get when they own a boat. They always want to go on the boat. “We’re taking the boat out this weekend. It’s supposed to be beautiful. Why don’t you come? You never come. You’re always working. You know how many people wish they would get invited to come on the boat? And you turn it down.”

— Colin Quinn

24. “I think I identify more with the smart guy, but most people might take umbrage at that. I like to think of myself as a real thinker, but I suppose people might beg to differ.”

— Colin Quinn

25. “I don’t know any comedian who tailors his act to his audience. Maybe people say they do, but I can’t even imagine them.”

— Colin Quinn

26. “I always wanted to write as much as perform.”

— Colin Quinn

27. “I think if you try to tailor your act to anybody, you end up with an act that doesn’t work anyway.”

— Colin Quinn

28. “I write all the time – I write poetry, I love to write.”

— Colin Quinn

29. “I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to China, I’ve been to Africa, I’ve been to the Middle East, I’ve been to Europe a little bit. I’ve never been to South America.”

— Colin Quinn

30. “That’s the beauty of being a comedian – it’s the one job you’re allowed to do that. We’re lucky. We’re really lucky.”

— Colin Quinn

31. “Twitter is one of those dangerous toys that if it gets in the hands of the wrong person you’ll have the mind of a 12-year-old masquerading as an adult.”

— Colin Quinn

32. “To be American is to long for whatever our parents fled.”

— Colin Quinn

33. “I’m quietly becoming New York’s premiere actor. People don’t understand. They have me pigeon-holed as a comedian.”

— Colin Quinn

34. “You can’t make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.”

— Colin Quinn

35. “The earth is a used Kleenex on the universe’s nightstand.”

— Colin Quinn

36. “I get the impression the English kings were witty, for some reason. I feel like all you had was your wit.”

— Colin Quinn

37. “For the most part, comedians are pretty friendly with each other. They always say they badmouth each other, but most of the time, they’re friends. We’re the only ones that can really stand our type of humor.”

— Colin Quinn

38. “Everybody’s got a different sense of humor. It’s just different styles.”

— Colin Quinn

39. “You know, the funny thing about Lorne and that show is that, you can go over one million things, but in a business of bean counters, he still likes to laugh at small things and creates a show around it.”

— Colin Quinn

40. “Those early days of comedy are when you get addicted to it.”

— Colin Quinn

41. “I’m always working on stuff. But they never materialize. I’m always working on movies and TV shows.”

— Colin Quinn

42. “A weird sort of awareness set in, like, ‘Wow. My stand-up isn’t just separate from everything else I do anymore.’ With Twitter and Face book, everything is universal that everything everybody says gets seen.”

— Colin Quinn

43. “With comedians, you have that understanding that we’re trying to get laughs.”

— Colin Quinn

44. “The mistake that people make in stand-up is thinking they’re profound or they’re deep when there are so many people who have more worthwhile ways of phrasing things.”

— Colin Quinn

45. “You can’t make money on Broadway. You make nothing. You maybe make like $1,350 a week after you pay out all the producers.”

— Colin Quinn

46. “New York Stat agreed to pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed three decades ago by inmates swept up in the bloody 1971 revolt at Attica prison. The settlement will be paid in the form of chocolate bars and packs of Newports that can be picked up in the commissary.”

— Colin Quinn

47. “A few years back, they jacked David Copperfield in West Palm Beach, for Chrissake. Yes, it’s funny: “Yo, empty your pockets,” and he pulls out a bunny rabbit. But it’s also depressing. If someone who can make himself disappear isn’t safe, who is?”

— Colin Quinn

48. “Stand-up is live, so I’m used to being live for most of my career. It’s interesting.”

— Colin Quinn

49. “My stand-up act? I combine the fact that the world is a violent place with the fact that each person is responsible for the situation they are in.”

— Colin Quinn

50. “I’m not a big method actor. I’m much more superficial.”

— Colin Quinn