Carrie Courogen > Quotes

“Everyone at the University of Chicago was smart—there was no arguing that—but Elaine was a world-wise woman among children, with a mind that seemed to run only at high speed, a cruel wit that could be weaponized at a moment’s notice, and an intimidating raw and unbalanced intelligence that came from all those years of skipping school to devour books on her own instead.”
― Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius

“Their humor came from calling bullshit on the status quo so many held dear, from digging into the psychology of the absurdities of human behavior and leaning into taboo topics others were afraid to touch.”
― Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius

“She resented the need “to start pleasing this tremendous unknown audience” where “you can only use safe material. But the only subject that’s really safe is parking—and there’s just so much you can say about parking.”56 She had success, but at what cost?”
― Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius

“Safe, a word Elaine eschewed in her work. “The only safe thing is to take a chance,” she always said.”
― Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius

“WE’RE ALL IN agreement here that the debate over whether women can be funny is, frankly, tired, right? Whether you want to go all the way back to William Congreve’s 1695 letter “Concerning Humour in Comedy” or Freud’s 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious or just a glance back at Christopher Hitchens’s 2007 diatribe “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” we get it. Proclaiming that women are not only not funny, but will never, “scientifically speaking,” be funny, is not only a long, time-tested parade of inane drivel, but a conversation that stretches far too close to comfort into our present lives.”
― Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius