Quotes About Stand-up

You have comedians who just do jokes, and they're called comics, not comedians. You have comedians that do bits - a person that has a lot of jokes that have a beginning, a middle and an end, but it's not a real story. And you have someone that does great stories, the one that blends those things together - that person is doing comedy.

With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.

I like writing a joke, and I like when a joke works, and I like other comics who tell jokes.

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.

As a comedian, frankly, I don't care that much about bad jokes.

I don't care if my jokes are appropriate for a kid.

I told jokes badly.

I never used to tell jokes on stage. Now I'm cutting up jokes all night long.

I only have eight jokes, but I can do 'em over a two-hour period of time.

Looking back, I remember my family laughing a lot. We were never the kind of people that dwelled on hard times. My family laughs when things are tough. Growing up like that, I got used to making jokes about things that were difficult. So when I started doing stand-up, that's what I went towards.

The thing that's frustrating about improv is that even if you have the best show in the world, it's over when it's over. You get to build stand-up - I really like that aspect of it. I like writing jokes, and you don't get to do that in improv.

A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.

Comedians who aren't screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They're expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

All I ever wanted to do was tell jokes for a living.

I don't have any writers. I never get a laugh with somebody else's jokes. I can't do it justice.

I don't have jokes that I can't defend.

If somebody said about me, 'I don't think his jokes are good, I don't think he's a good comedian,' I don't like to read that but that's a fair thing to say.

It's hard for a comic to be joking when your lines can't be funny.

The book is called 'Thanks for Nothing' and it's really the story of how I got into comedy and traces back every strand in my life that is relevant to that story. It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up.

There was this whole middle time that only Chris Rock came out of, you know, 10 years ago it was Chris and a few other people, but that's about it. Chris is in a class of his own; I don't see another comedian who I put in high regard as him.

I like stand-up. But I'd also like a family and house and a yard. I want to work with a lot of people, have colleagues; and on good film sets, there's people there that work with the same people for years and years. I love that collaborative spirit in that medium. Comedy is a lot more solitary.

Once you become a comedian, you accept that people are just going to yell stuff at you.

I do a bit called, 'You go, girl!' where I say, 'Don't tell me 'You go, girl!' I get it. I don't need you encourage me.' And nine times out of 10 after I finish the bit, some guy in the back will yell 'You go, girl!' I get a lot of that or 'I hear ya!' I don't generally - knock on fake wood - get mean heckling.

Marc Maron yells at people. I have a memory of him yelling at Jonah Ray from offstage about something he was saying, just fun stuff.