Quotes About Stand-up

The difference between comedians and the general public is that we are meant to be funnier. And when you've got politicians giving material so easy that the general public is doing it, what is the necessity of us anymore?

Doing stand-up is not normal. People fear public speaking above all other things, and I am no different.

I admire any woman who does stand-up, but frankly I'd rather pull out my own eyelids.

When I was starting out, I was just bringing a garbage bag of jokes onstage, pulling them out like, 'What about this? No? Alright.' I was just trying to be funny about anything.

I never got beaten up, because I was a wisecracking jokester. I could make a bully laugh before he delivered a punch.

I was in punk bands when I was a kid, and then I would do stand-up in between bands - which wasn't any different from my singing.

I wasn't very good as a puppet. A lot of times in a movie, you need a really good puppeteer: you're sort of a puppet, and you're doing what you can. But I always, from the beginning, was kind of making up my own stuff from stand-up and sort of directing myself, so I wasn't very good in movies where I didn't have control.

I feel like L.A. is more of a showcase, and Chicago is a pure comedy scene where you're doing comedy for comedy. You're doing comedy actually for the audience that's there.

I'm proud to say that I've never had a normal job. I started doing stand-up when I was in high school, purely as a measure to never get a proper job.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

I knew at an early age that I wanted to pursue comedy.

When I moved to L.A., I had no intention of really pursuing acting. I wanted to focus on stand-up. It's crazy to me that my acting career took off much faster than my stand-up career.

When people come to see my stand-up, they get a chance to see my characters interact with each other. I enjoy pushing my characters to the limit. No matter how far out there I go, I look for things that make the characters human.

Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it.

I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself.

I like comedy, I mean, in all forms.

Stand-up is the foundation to my career. It's what I started out doing.

I love edgy comedy. 'Coming to America' still gets me and 'Friday.' I watch old Richard Pryor stand-up on VHS, too.

Other than friends and family, my favorite things are New York and stand-up. I love doing comedy in New York - I can do way more stand-up here than in Los Angeles.

The most frightening thing about playing Dick Gregory is I've never done stand-up before, and I had to learn how to be a stand-up comedian, which was a bit of a challenge.

There is nothing that I'm more compelled to do than get up in front of a crowd and make people laugh.

I try not to listen to the other comedians performing before me because they will probably be funnier than me.

Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around.

I think Chelsea Handler is the funniest woman.