Index: src/wp-includes/comment-template.php
===================================================================
--- src/wp-includes/comment-template.php	(revision 34512)
+++ src/wp-includes/comment-template.php	(working copy)
@@ -565,23 +565,27 @@
  */
 function get_comment_excerpt( $comment_ID = 0 ) {
 	$comment = get_comment( $comment_ID );
-	$comment_text = strip_tags($comment->comment_content);
-	$blah = explode(' ', $comment_text);
+	$comment_text = strip_tags( str_replace( array( "\n", "\r" ), ' ', $comment->comment_content ) );
+	$words = explode( ' ', $comment_text );
 
-	if (count($blah) > 20) {
-		$k = 20;
-		$use_dotdotdot = 1;
-	} else {
-		$k = count($blah);
-		$use_dotdotdot = 0;
+	/**
+	 * Filter the amount of words used in the comment excerpt.
+	 *
+	 * @since 4.4.0
+	 *
+	 * @param int $comment_excerpt_length The amount of words you want to display in the comment excerpt.
+	 */
+	$comment_excerpt_length = apply_filters( 'comment_excerpt_length', 20 );
+
+	$use_ellipsis = count( $words ) > $comment_excerpt_length;
+	if ( $use_ellipsis ) {
+		$words = array_slice( $words, 0, $comment_excerpt_length );
 	}
 
-	$excerpt = '';
-	for ($i=0; $i<$k; $i++) {
-		$excerpt .= $blah[$i] . ' ';
+	$excerpt = trim( join( ' ', $words ) );
+	if ( $use_ellipsis ) {
+		$excerpt .= '&hellip;';
 	}
-	$excerpt .= ($use_dotdotdot) ? '&hellip;' : '';
-
 	/**
 	 * Filter the retrieved comment excerpt.
 	 *