Quotes on Standup

All of comedy at some level is trial-and-error, whether it's a stand-up trying out jokes or a comedy show trying stories.

People ask me, 'Have you ever considered doing stand-up?' To me it would be less offensive if someone asked me, 'Have you ever considered dental implants?'

No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there's a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I'd've turned on to that.

That's what's great about standup comedy: the instant feedback. You get up on stage, you tell a joke, if it doesn't work, come back the next day with a better version of it.

I miss seeing real comics, Shecky Greene and Buddy Hackett, those types. I like straight stand-up, talking about the Olympics and why I feel obligated to watch them. 'Why am I watching archery at 4 in the afternoon?'

I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.

I've battled with that type of stuff, but what I've found is that by doing stand-up, I've actually learned about depression and how to combat it. I don't have clinical, but I've definitely had my bouts with it.

When I quit my internship and started doing standup to pursue my dreams and do that full time - I feel like that's when I 'Americaned.'

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Every performer I talk to will, with different words, talk about the sanctity of a good standup show, how it can really feel spiritual. When everybody is laughing, fixed on the same thing, you feel like you transcend yourself.

I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.

When you first start out in stand-up and, probably, as any performer, you enjoy the attention so much, and even though that hasn't died down on stage, it certainly has satiated whatever was in me that was needing that much attention. When I'm off stage, it's not something that I really need.

I've said this before, and I'm sure there are people who disagree, but I feel like one of the reasons there aren't a lot more women in stand-up - and there are many more now; it's not parity, but it's getting there - is that women are not socialized to look stupid or silly. They're socialized to be pretty and precious.

There's only one rule in stand-up, which is that you have to be funny. Yet 99 per cent of comics look and talk exactly the same.

I have no intention of retiring; I can't imagine not doing stand-up. That's where I started and where I'll be.

You have to have a thick skin, yes. If you're going to do something as foolhardy as standup, you've got to be able to take it on the chin if someone has a go at you.

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

There were very few women comics when I started out doing stand-up. But I always saw that as a great advantage.

That's how to make a stand-up comedian: You take a person who is uncomfortable and try to squirrel their way out of it through humor.

It's a very odd thing with Hollywood, where you do stand-up, you're good at it, then they go, 'How would you like to be a horrible actor?' Then you say, 'All right, that sounds good. I'll do that.'