Quotes About Stand-up

I've done a great job at being universal in my stand-up, which is why, for 'Let Me Explain,' I toured all over the world. These movies I have coming out - 'Ride Along,' 'Grudge Match,' 'About Last Night,' 'Think Like a Man Too' - are putting me in a position to become universal on an even bigger scale.

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

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.

There were never that many women stand-up comics in the past because the power to make people laugh is also a power that gets people upset.

I do have a lot of female friends who are stand-ups and also women who are actresses and also happen to have an act.

Maybe pretty women were always funny but only now decided to go into comedy.

I did auditions at a club called the Comedy Connection. They wanted nothing to do with me. But one night they were doing a night of all women comics, and they invited me to do that.

If someone doesn't like a comedian that's fine; a lot of people probably don't like my standup, and that's fine. But I think that the problem is people want you to get in trouble. That's the issue.

I have a hard time describing myself as a standup comedian because I don't feel like I'm doing stand up jokes more than I am acting like a person who has a bad point of view.

We went to open-mike night at a comedy club called Stanford & Sons and the comics were terrible. My cousin dared me to get up there and, well, he was challenging my manhood. I had to do it.

I started going to the open mics every day in 2003. You make the comics laugh, they get you work, and you build up your reputation. It was a slow process.

I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to be a serious actress. I started off doing comedy. I did a stand-up comedy camp at the Laugh Factory, and I started out on Nickelodeon.

Starting probably with Janeane Garofalo and that era of stand-up ladies who were starting to be more brainy and strong and clever, guys started noticing those girls as sexy smart. I always called it smarxy.

I think a comedian has to be low status on some level; that gives you the right to do all sorts of jokes about all sorts of different kinds of people.

If the 'Chappelle's Show' had stayed on, I seriously doubt I would have developed this fast as a stand-up comedian. I probably would never have taken stand-up comedy really seriously.

The thing is, I always thought I could do stand-up, and so I just stayed focused on the belief that I could succeed.

What made me a comedian was staying on the stage and starting to talk.

I don't watch a whole lot of stand up. Mainly I prefer to read writers; they make me laugh the most. Something gets you when you're alone and someone's voice is coming through their work. There's a different quality to it that stays with you a bit more.

Someone gave me a piece of advice once, my first manager Lucien Hold. He said, 'If you do stand-up about your own life, no one can steal it.' I always thought that was the best piece of advice.

Never steal jokes.

While awaiting sentencing, I decided to give stand-up comedy a shot. The judge had suggested I get my act together, and I took him seriously.

Stand-up comics tend to make two assumptions: that Christians have no sense of humour and that all their audiences are unbelievers.

Comics who consider themselves 'mavericks' or think the crowd doesn't get them are normally lousy comics.

I'm generally not interested in Shakespeare or 'Broadchurch'. I only want to make people laugh, really.