Best Stand Up Comedy Quotes

#1. I do some of my best stand-up comedy during sound checks.

Madonna Ciccone

#2. Stand-up comedy is like the lowest medium in all of show business in levels of respect.

Chris Rock

#3. I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.

Nolan North

#4. Kevin Hart. He's the man! I like his style. He's short, so I can relate. All the stories he tells are real. I respect that, and he's just a really funny dude - great comedy instincts. To do stand-up on a stage for an hour and tell stories and make people laugh is incredible.

Cameron Boyce

#5. I moved from acting to stand-up because castings are just about what you look like. It doesn't matter if you can act or not. In comedy, no one cares what you look like.

Mark Billingham

#6. No small part of the club's audience consisted of would-be comics, as well as the leading comics of the day. In fact, there were so many gagsters around that it was difficult to know who was part of the act and who was just sitting in.

Kliph Nesteroff

#7. I do films which get me out of my comedian routine so that I don't get bored being a stand-up comedian. And with films, it's here today, gone tomorrow. So stand-up comedy is here to stay for me.

Vir Das

#8. One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I'm a comedian, which I'm not. A comedian is someone who can stand up in front of an audience and make you laugh. I've never done stand-up and I never will. I'm a comic actor. My comedy comes through my characters.

Eugene Levy

#9. Regardless of what I do, whether I write a book or whether I act or whether I host, I'll always do stand-up comedy because those moments, that's what I crave. If I do something funny, and I hear a crowd laugh in that moment, we're all sharing the exact same experience and the exact same feeling.

Howie Mandel

#10. You know, it wasn't even that I'm a funny guy, I just loved stand-up comedy and I wanted to do it. It was one of the few things in my life that I knew I was going to be able to do, and I also felt as though I'd be able to do it the way I wanted to do it.

Bill Burr

#11. I can do more than just stand-up comedy, and the only way I'll be able to show that is if I do it myself. Because nobody trusts that I can do it.

Dane Cook

#12. After doing comedy for a while and knowing how hard it is to do physical comedy right, I learned how incredibly talented the Three Stooges really were after re-watching old episodes. They still stand up!

Carly Craig

#13. As far as just my stand-up is concerned, I don't care about changing anyone's mind. I'm not making an argument. I'm a guy doing comedy.

David Cross

#14. I want my rockstars dead.

Bill Hicks

#15. Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.

Chris Tucker

#16. It seems to me that they only seem to mention things in the Bible that are within a 5 mile radius of the guy writing it.

Jim Jefferies

#17. I think it's nice if someone respects whatever their endeavor is, whether it's dance or art or stand-up comedy, to not assume that they're gonna be an overnight sensation, that it's this great craft that takes a lot of hard work to get good at.

Adrian Tomine

#18. What exactly does the I in FBI stand for?" ~Maggie Mae Castro

Beth Yarnall

#19. Ultimately, I just decided stand-up comedy is a huge commitment, and if you want to be the best, you have to give it one hundred per cent.

Deirdre O'Kane

#20. I am very proud of what 'Johnny' achieved in stand-up comedy because he believed entirely in giving an audience the best kick he could. But he was someone who was quite detrimental to my health, both emotionally and physically.

Johnny Vegas

#21. Real comedy can't be learned; it comes from a need for justice. The best who stand up, stand up for something.

Elayne Boosler

#22. When it comes to English stand-up comedy, Indians have only seen the best - Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and the like. So, when someone claims to be an English stand-up comedian in India, he'd better be very good if he's going to make a life of it.

Vir Das

#23. Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live.

Amy Poehler

#24. You know, stand-up comedy is where I pretty much started out.

Brion James

#25. I've seen stand up comedy, and after a while you start to notice that a lot of people are doing things that are like a lot of other people. There can be a bit of a herd mentality, and that's obviously less interesting because there's less going on. I'm just being totally frank with you.

Dylan Moran

#26. Have four things going. I have stand-up comedy, two television shows and I'm working on a play. I like to work, and I fear that something could fall through. You know what they say: 'The show must go off.'

Joy Behar

#27. If you are doing stand-up comedy, you have to be confident in what you are doing. That doesn't mean just because you are confident you are funny.

Judah Friedlander

#28. Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

Denis Leary

#29. I do think that stand-up comedy in general heavily favors masculinity and so I like to act a little feminine onstage.

Bo Burnham

#30. New York State is giant and has some of the most beautiful landscape on the Eastern seaboard. There is so much history in New York State, from the Erie Canal to the Catskills, the birth of American stand-up comedy.

Adam Savage

#31. I'm going to try really hard not to be bossy, but I've only done stand-up comedy and then my own show where you're the total boss of everything!

Rosie O'Donnell

#32. I'm not a comedian, I'm not a stand-up and I don't come from a comedy background. I am an actor, but I've had a very fortunate foray into comedy, and it seems to have become a bit of a strength, and you can't complain when you become known for something.

Darren Boyd

#33. Comedy doesn't really matter that much; I know that. I treat it like an adult - I don't treat it like a child or a god, which some people do. This might just be in America, but 'stand-up comedy' is something very particular that I don't particularly relate to.

Bo Burnham

#34. 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.

Steve Martin

#35. I do podcasts for the same reasons I do stand-up comedy. I love it, and I don't care if anybody else gets it.

Chris Hardwick

#36. I was doing stand-up at a restaurant and there was a chalkboard on the street out front. It said, Soup of the Day: Cream of Asparagus. Ellen DeGeneres.

Ellen DeGeneres

#37. People need to write articles and they need to have angles in them and I'm grateful when people are doing articles, but I always say there's not a great mystery to stand-up comedy.

Jim Gaffigan

#38. I took a job in a comedy club - not doing stand-up comedy, because that's my idea of hell, but in the office - and I went traveling.

Phoebe Fox

#39. The two things I understand best are stand-up comedy and martial arts. And those things require an ultimate grasp of the truth. You have to be objective about your skills and abilities to compete in both.

Joe Rogan

#40. I just want to kind of tackle every kind of form that exists in the comedy world; whether it be stand-up or hidden camera or parody. Kind of slap it in a movie with hip-hop artists and actors, comedians and girls. I just want to do something fun.

Pauly Shore

#41. My sense of stand up comedy would be so esoteric.

Paul Rudd

#42. But long story short, I didn't start doing stand-up because I wanted to have a TV show or be an actor or even wanted to write sketch comedy. I got into stand-up because I love stand-up.

Demetri Martin

#43. In terms of a comedy plan I don't really have a list of what I want accomplish. I'm just riding the wave! I think I will always come back to stand-up and comedy in all its forms. I just don't think it will ever be the one sole thing I do.

Doc Brown

#44. Anytime there's a bad female stand-up somewhere, some dickhead Interblogger will deduce that "women aren't funny." Using that same math, I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups.

Tina Fey