Excerpt from How to be Funny and Other Writings:

I have been interviewed in every Town in the United States, by serious-looking young College Boys, with horn rimmed glasses and no hat, on the subject, "How would you advise a beginner to be funny?"

The interest they all show in it you would think that all young America is practicing to be funny. I have tried to advise the Boys that I have known men in other walks of life that have made more than Comedians. But its just one of the things that you cant discourage anyone from , once they have made up their minds. Its like these business men that go through life telling everyone they meet stories. The only novelty to it is that each man that tells it tells it worse than the fellow that just told you the same one down the street.

Now, you cant stop one of these fellows. Somebody laughed at him as a Boy and it just practically ruined him. He is just doomed to go through life-"Did you hear this one? If you did, stop me." But those College Boys are aiming a little higher. They don't want t o just repeat "The little Jewish man said the the Irishman." They have got their sights set on some humor. They are figuring on it for a profession. They figure it is like tending an Oil Station, that it is a profession that you can study and learn.

Some of these Boys when they came to interview me they had their answers written out. And the best and most complete one was handed to me at Lincoln, Nebraska, where their State University is. I was playing there that night, and back stage come just about as dejected a looking Senior as I had ever seen. He was matriculating in laughter at Bryans old stronghold. But he lost all confidence in me as a funny man when I couldent answer right off the reel a few little simple questions that he had written down and handed to me. So I got him to let me take the paper and send him back the answers later.

Now, here is his exact questions in the exact order he had them, and my answers:

"Is the field of humor crowded?"
Only when Congress is in session.

"What talent is necessary? Must one be born with a funny bone in ones head?"
Its not a talent, its affliction. If a funnybone is necessary I would say that in the head is the place to have it. Thats the least used of a humorist equipment.