Quotes About Stand-up

With stand-up, I can have an idea, go down the street to a comedy club and work on it, flesh it out, book a venue, people will come, then film it. I do all that myself; I never have to answer to anybody.

I'm not Kathy Griffin. I can't do 1200 seat venues. I need 300, 400 something like that.

I'm not someone who gets to play The O2 and places like that, but that's the kind of rock and roll venue. The popularity of stand-up means that some people are getting to play rock star venues.

The stand-up world is very, very hard. There is a lot of competition, and there are not that many venues, and there are not that many opportunities. You have really got to stand out.

George Lopez is always on the verge of hilarity. If he could ever think of something funny to say, if he had a funny thought in his mind, he's ready to go.

I play these sort of comical instruments I invented, like the electric rake and the electric plunger. I do a lot of almost stand-up comedy material. Just the juxtaposition of the different styles in itself sometimes is funny. Like, I do sort of an acoustic version of 'Purple Haze' that has some bluegrass licks in it.

What Jews do you know who don't make comedy of their lives? It's part of the religion. I'll bet you think all that Hebrew at bar mitzvahs is prayers, don't you? Fooled you, didn't we? It's stand-up.

The funniest part of that joke is, 'say what you will about Hitler'. -to Ricky Gervais on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

I really love stand-up. I'm more than happy to do it for nothing. I've come to America to do it for nothing. It's the American Dream: Work for free.

I'm very much a stand-up comedian in my heart. That's really what I do. Now I'm trying to incorporate all of the different elements of my work as a performer, and use it as a stand-up comedian.

There's no show business in Canada, so everybody just did stand-up and we all thought, "Oh, we'll just keep doing stand-up." And then I'm like, "There's more work in the States."

All the truly great stand-ups say, "I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work." To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.

I remember doing stand-up at an open mic a long time ago, and the MC was like, 'Who's next?' I said, 'Marietta Sirleaf,' and he was like, 'What?' And I was like, 'Ugh, okay, just Retta.' It stuck with me ever since.

My daughter has studied in London and when she came back, she wanted to be a stand up comedian.

If I wasn't acting or doing stand-up, I would be in animation. Or if I had the discipline I might studies physics.

If a comic laughs at their own jokes, I don't like it. They shouldn't find it funny; they should seriously believe in this stupid thing they're saying.

The basic function of a comic is stand-up because it's so straightforward and simple. If the audience don't laugh, you didn't do your job. I've had some audiences where I didn't care if they laughed or not because they were either too drunk or stupid.

A lot of improvisers mistakenly assume stand-up is awful, because there are a lot of stand-ups in the world that did not appeal to me. It was so easy to make a blanket statement when I was improvising only: 'Stand-up's terrible.' It's so ignorant and stupid to do that. But it's easy to do that. So that's where I came from.

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part.

I like all styles of MMA, my first classes in the sport were BJJ but I prefer to stand up.

I never defend my material. Comedy is subjective.

That's why I like Demian Maia and Fabricio Werdum. Demian will take you down and do his game. Werdum learned the stand-up to know what's coming, but he never stopped using his jiu-jitsu. He will clinch, take you down and submit you.

Of course I will submit if I have a chance, but I always prefer to finish a fight in a stand-up position.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.