Stand-up Quotes

Stand-up is the kind of gig that'll show you where you're at.

You can't cancel my stand-up tours. It's impossible. There's too many separate bosses. There is no 'bosses.'

Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.

Prison widens your circle of friends. In my stand-up, I can now talk about things that no one else has the right to touch.

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.

I did stand-up, weird and ignorant stuff about my career - anything for a laugh.

You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

I can hardly think of an occasion when I've got into a stand-up fight with any political opponent. I've got my views, people know what they are, they can agree or they can choose to disagree. I'm not going to waste time just rubbishing everybody else.

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

I like doing stand-up and I love putting out TV specials.

The mistake that people make in stand-up is thinking they're profound or they're deep when there are so many people who have more worthwhile ways of phrasing things.

I think right now is the best time for stand-up, ever. I sincerely do.

Stand-up comedy is tough right now. Anybody can come to a concert, tape you, and put you up on the Internet. You either fight it or embrace it.

I didn't really like the aloneness of doing stand-up.

Stand-up comics reflect less of a visual humor and more of a commentary.

I started to do a study on how not to do stand-up comedy. Yeah, it's lonely work. You die, you die alone. It's you, the light, and the audience. If you win, you win big. If you lose, you lose big time.

My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

Because I was surrounded by so much negativity at some point that it took me going back and doing stand-up to realize, you know, people really like me.

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

But you really - I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal. You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes - it's all about capturing the moment - in the moment, you know.

Live performance really terrifies me. I haven't done it, really, in years. I think that's why I retired from my brief career in stand-up.

Lesbians are likely to be drawn to stand-up, if only because it's cheaper to produce and therefore more accessible for women. But the very form of stand-up is masculine.

When you snatch little pieces of other people's lives and try to palm them off as your own, that's more disgusting than anything. Robin Williams is a huge thief. Denis Leary is a huge thief. His whole stand-up career is based on Bill Hicks, a brilliant guy who died years ago.

I got lucky. I won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in 1977 while I was still at San Francisco State.

There is never hesitation about doing stand-up. It's just me doing my thing.

I took an acting class. After the first day, the teacher quit, so they said take another. When I saw 'How to be a Stand-up Comedian,' it resonated. I realized I'd rather make 200 people laugh than make one person cry.

I had no desire to be a stand-up comic until I decided to do it.

The only thing I really recommend, if you're starting out in stand-up is to not try to copy anybody else. You can be influenced by people. I was influenced by Steve Martin and Bob Newhart and Woody Allen, but I never tried to be someone else. I always tried to be myself. And the reason people are successful is they're unique.