“When I play, it is not for the audience. I play for that superior Power in between the audience and me. There are different kinds of people in the audience, and it is difficult for me to satisfy everyone. I perform for "that Power."”

Talkings on the audience and studio recordings

news.bostonherald.com (March 12, 2008)
2007, 2008

Poppin (1969)
Context: We can only take it so far, because man can only take it so far, lower self can only take it so far, and you have to realize that the public is only at a certain place. We won't see the day when the public accepts what we wanna project, even though they are accepting a lot now. By the time they're accepting it, maybe they'll be too old.... If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play. A total silence trip is the ultimate.... We do antagonize them psychologically. People look at us and react. They either go "Wow! Hey-hey-hey, baby!" and we say that's great. They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react — do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it.

1993-11-18 at Sony Music Studios, New York City, New York (MTV Unplugged).
Stage banter

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

Quoted in "Ellen Stewart, Off Off Broadway Pioneer, Dies at 91" by Mel Gussow and Bruce Weber, The New York Times, (January 13, 2011) https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/theater/14stewart.html.

On her painting style in “Lucy Liu on making art to find a sense of belonging” https://www.cnn.com/style/article/lucy-liu-artsy/index.html in CNN (2019 Nov 28)

Charlie Rose, (December 16, 1996) "Charlie Rose - An interview with Madeline Kahn" http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5799, Charlie Rose, PBS