Quotes About Standup

We come from a live background of sketch improv and standup.

I did a standup show called 'Show Me the Funny,' so from that I got some TV stuff and people would book me for gigs. I wasn't really good enough at that point, so had to catch up with expectations.

The energy of the metal is what I've always loved and the energy I do on stage with standup, I mean, I'm not Metallica, but I've always extremely attracted and driven by that energy and the thought-provoking lyrics and drive. That's an attitude every standup show I go in. I go in to crush your face.

If there are things that are off limits, why would you do standup?

In standup, the feedback is instantaneous, and if it fails, you know you'll be off-stage and hiding in a short time.

I'd decided to write about stuff that I would like to hear standup about.

I'd been doing standup since college.

I'm a big fan of Louis CK - I think he's a master of standup.

I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.

I have always told my family that I don't want my birthday to be celebrated and that they shouldn't get me anything, even though if they didn't I'd probably write a standup routine about it.

When I was at university, I did essays on political theatre. And it was really frustrating that the ideas weren't reaching the people they were talking about. Standup is the one place where you are talking to every level of society.

Sometimes I start off shows by explaining to people that it's just a bunch of stories - I always say 'It's like standup, just less funny.'

I'm sure when alternative comedy started, before which - Billy Connolly aside - standup was essentially a person being racist and sexist onstage, there was also the sense that this was the death of comedy. But it's just progress.

I want to do everything, so when I started I wanted to be an actress, and I've always written funny things. I love that; it gives me a real sense of achievement and joy. I also love presenting. I'd never been interested in it before but found it pretty fun and easy, and I really enjoyed working with a group - standup is so lonely.

The thing that's gotten me everywhere in my standup is talking about my family. I started doing it back in high school. I don't think our society looks at marriage and family enough. I think we've gone off course.

Anybody who's done standup will tell you that there's nothing like it. The show starts at 8:00, the curtain goes up and there's nobody else except you and the audience, and you just perform for them for two hours. Nobody yells, 'Cut!' There are no retakes. That is still the most exciting medium for me, and I love it.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

I think there's a percentage [of the audience] that don't realize, that don't know that [standup] is how everything began. We planned it, we work hard, rehearsals to get this. It's more of a ... it's not just coming in there in a T-shirt and holding a microphone.

As a standup, I try to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room.

Unlike 'Deal or No Deal,' which is for the entire family, my standup is not for the entire family.

I never liked the glossiness of highly produced standup specials in general - I like it where it has more of a feel of the type of places I usually perform. It seems kind of weird when you do a special to go perform in a place unlike the place where you perform 95% of the time.

I never did standup before. It just looked like it was really hard, looked like there was like up days and down days - and I'm too emotionally unstable for that. I need to always be funny and always be loved.

I feel like most standup comedians do it the way I did it, where you just go to open mics and cut your teeth. Sketch and improv - they take a lot of classes. It's not unusual, the way I did it. It's just that, with standup, no one knows how to start because there's no book for it; there's no place you can really go.

'All Def' is unlike any other comedy show or set because 'All Def' goes back to the essence of how urban comedy started. We give it a 'stoop appeal.' A stoop appeal is important for us because it's where pretty much all black comics started doing their standup: cracking jokes on the stoop, in the hood.