Quotes About Stand Up Comedy

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. 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

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

Bo Burnham

#6. 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

#7. 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

#8. 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

#9. 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

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

Brion James

#11. 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

#12. 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

#13. 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

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

Paul Rudd

#15. 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

#16. 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

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. 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

#20. 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

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

Chris Rock

#22. 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

#23. 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

#24. When I was 14, I told my mother I was going to drop out of high school and go do stand-up comedy. All she said was 'Oh maybe it's better if you just die,' because it was killing her that I was doing this.

Margaret Cho

#25. When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

Dean Norris

#26. Stand-up comedy is an art form and it dies unless you expand it.

Sam Kinison

#27. 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.

Amanda Bynes

#28. Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me.

Dwayne Johnson

#29. I keep my stand-up comedy notes in a pile on my desk. I don't organize my act. I keep myself in a state of confusion. It stresses me out, but I prefer creative chaos.

Joy Behar

#30. I have a work-out regime; I am not a maniac. It sounds cliche, but stand-up comedy, doing a one-man show, helps keep me young, and yes, it is exhausting, but I don't collapse.

Robert Klein

#31. I'm lucky enough to have two different platforms to perform on - I do stand-up comedy, and I have 'SNL.' That's where I make my most controversial statements because I can explain myself and I'm in control of the microphone, as opposed to Twitter, where it's in the hands of the reader.

Michael Che

#32. Stand-up comedy is the most relaxing thing I do. If I want to unwind and de-stress, I go out and do stand-up, often several shows in a night.

Judah Friedlander

#33. I really don't want to do anything that resembles stand-up comedy. But I will agree to say that I am doing it, and I will hope that people expect it to be that, so I can thwart those expectations.

Lucas Neff

#34. There's so much you can achieve with a launching pad like stand-up comedy. You can literally go from acting to hosting to being a personality.

Kevin Hart

#35. I personally have no interest in being a star or a celebrity. I want my stand-up comedy and how I think as a comedian to be recognized and successful.

Jim Gaffigan

#36. Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, like Jack Benny and Steve Martin, but in its essence, it's soul-destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks.

Mike Nichols

#37. The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.

David Steinberg

#38. I think that people who do enjoy my stand-up comedy and the people who get it and the people who are taken in by it, they see that I'm a guy that has love of the game.

Dane Cook

#39. Improv seemed to replace stand-up, which was very big before that. Stand-up comedy was real hot in the late '80s and through the '90s.

Joe Flaherty

#40. I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened.

Catherine Tate

#41. I think a lot comes from having the experience of doing stand-up comedy. It allows you to figure out the psychology of an audience; what things are funny and not.

Keenen Ivory Wayans

#42. A lot of stand-up comedy guys, when they get a little famous, just give up their stand-up career, and it cancels out the thing that set them apart.

Johnny Knoxville

#43. I'm a stand-up comic. Anything else I do besides that is a plus, but stand-up comedy is what I do, it's what I've been doing and it's what I'm going to keep doing.

Dave Attell

#44. 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

#45. I usually have sex to my stand-up comedy album. Power move.

Jeff Ross

#46. For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

Kevin Hart

#47. 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

#48. Stand-up comedy is all you. It's your show, it's your game. You control every aspect of it - of that experience and that expression. There's really nothing quite as satisfying.

Bryan Callen

#49. I just liked stand-up comedy so much. I used to memorize Bill Cosby albums and other people's albums, George Carlin, Flip Wilson.

Drew Carey

#50. I don't like doing things by halves, and I realised you can't do stand-up comedy part-time.

Deirdre O'Kane

#51. It's weird with stand-up comedy. It doesn't really translate worldwide. I want to figure out how do I make it worldwide. Do a special in Africa. Can't beat that. Pull that off, then I will have done something.

Chris Rock

#52. I kind of thought that stand-up comedy would suffer from the Internet because people seem to know more about the craft of stand-up than ever before. I thought it would seem trite. Kind of like if you know more about magicians, you wouldn't love them.

Jerry Seinfeld

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

Dane Cook

#54. Stand-up is not just an American thing anymore. It's global. In some places, stand-up comedy is brand new. South Africa has only had a scene for 15 years.

Gabriel Iglesias

#55. I just love entertaining. I will do anything - stand-up comedy, video games, fencing, internet shorts - I just want to keep being lucky enough to entertain people anyway I can. I try never to limit my art to a medium.

Matthew Gray Gubler

#56. Stand-up comedy - I love this job, and I gotta tell you, folks - knock wood - it's been working. 'Cause I was one of those kind of people, even when I had a regular job, I couldn't even call in sick right. You know, I was like, 'Hello? Yeah, I can't come in today. I have scurvy.

Carol Leifer

#57. 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

#58. I think of a lot of comedy being watched alone, for some reason. It's surprising to me that people are getting together to watch stand-up comedy.

Gary Gulman

#59. After graduation, I was floundering in L.A., doing stand-up comedy and working in a shoe store in the Valley.

Kevin Spacey

#60. 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.

Tim Allen

#61. Doing stand-up comedy is in the middle of a traffic jam getting everybody moving again.

Jon Stewart

#62. I think people tune in to watch a football game because they want to watch a football game. If they wanted to watch a stand-up comedy show on HBO, that's where they'd go

Dan Dierdorf

#63. I can't imagine being a woman in the world of acting, like where you age starts to weigh you down - you go from being attractive to where they [directors] decided you're out ... I feel like with stand-up comedy, it doesn't matter if I've gotten fatter.

Jim Jefferies

#64. I guess you get pigeon-holed in Hollywood, but I'm ok with that because I've been able to do a lot. I started in the theater, then I went to stand-up comedy, and then when I went into the movies to do comedy and drama and big movies and small movies.

Denis Leary

#65. For me, stand-up comedy is a conversation between me and the audience. I have to keep them listening. When I'm making jokes about cake for twenty minutes, I have to make sure my audience is interested and following where I'm going.

Jim Gaffigan

#66. A talk show is about having a look at a famous face, a bit of stand-up comedy, knockabout stuff - an interview is what Barbara Walters or Connie Chung does in the States, in-depth, done properly.

Terry Wogan

#67. Do it [stand-up comedy] because it feels like the right thing to do. Do it because you don't want to do anything else. There is something in you that does not want you to do anything else other than comedy.

Russell Peters

#68. I'm doing stand-up comedy. I'm working on a one-woman show about how I don't like my baby. There is a period of time where a baby is born where the next 3 months is harrowing. A lot of people say it's the most wonderful time, but for me it was harrowing.

Mary Lynn Rajskub

#69. Stand-up comedy is a raunchy profession.

Aziz Ansari

#70. I go to a lot of stand-up comedy. I find more inspiration from observational stuff than from rap.

Riz Ahmed

#71. To me, being brave is an element that is so important with stand-up comedy. It's not essential. There are many comics who were just funny, and that's fine, too. But that's never been what I was trying to do in comedy. I was always trying to do something that involved not pandering to the audience.

Bill Maher

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

Dana Carvey

#73. When I started stand-up - and this is in the '90s - there was definitely people hadn't watched decades of Comedy Central, where people are really much more educated on stand-up comedy.

Jim Gaffigan

#74. I don't like stand-up comedy that requires a lot of props. I really respect people who can walk out onstage alone and with no other tool but their own minds and can make you laugh and maybe even think a little.

David Letterman

#75. It's exciting to be able to do something completely independent without anybody challenging it, and it's a big part of the reason why I'm enjoying doing the stand-up comedy, is I'm able to go out and interact with people one-on-one after the show. It's very punk-rock.

Tom Green

#76. 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.

Jim Varney

#77. I was a very special child. I did stand-up comedy. I did it all. My family didn't understand. 'Aren't you tired?' I'm like, 'No.' I'm like an insomniac, I hardly sleep, I'm always on the move.

Alessandra Torresani

#78. I'm a comedian, for God's sake. Viewers shouldn't trust me. And you know what? They're hip enough to know they shouldn't trust me. I'm just doing stand-up comedy.

Dennis Miller

#79. Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors.

Dave Foley

#80. I'd been doing some light-beer commercials for Budweiser and Coors, and I was doing stand-up comedy. I wanted to get into the acting world, and my agent sent me on audition and they liked it.

Kevin Nealon

#81. I better start doing stand up comedy in Spanish before every comedian in Mexico translates my jokes.

Felipe Esparza

#82. When I was nine, we'd take a bus to the seaside. Coming back, we'd take turns entertaining, singing songs and the like. I tried some stand-up comedy. I had a captive audience in that bus. Then I realized I wanted to do more than that.

Jim Dale

#83. Stand-up comedy is a lot about amplifying emotions and situations; movie acting has a lot to do with mellowing things down and making them subtle. The transition was almost terrifying because of the magnitude of change.

Vir Das

#84. As a live stand-up comedy performer, I have the benefit of choosing real entrance music.

John Hodgman

#85. Stand-up comedy is mine: it's my entity; it's my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

Kevin Hart

#86. Stand-up comedy had an interesting effect on me in terms of how I started to think about constructing things, because I really loved the interstices, the linkages, or lack thereof.

Mark Leyner

#87. I did stand-up comedy for seventeen years. I need to explore other things.

Dane Cook

#88. A lot of stand-up comedy is embarrassing: too many idiots doing it in orange neckties against brick walls. I find most sitcoms embarrassing, too, because they seem so forced.

Tracey Ullman

#89. I've a belt that I have worn for every single stand-up comedy session since I was 19. I fear if I ever lose it, my career would crumble. That's my one OCD.

Vir Das

#90. When has stand-up comedy been kind to anyone? It goes after anyone who's the target. Comedy attacks, man.

Sam Kinison

#91. 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.

Jeff Dunham

#92. DID STAND-UP COMEDY for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.

Steve Martin

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

Madonna Ciccone

#94. The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

Mike Birbiglia

#95. On MySpace ... the whole demographic of the stand-up comedy fan has changed. It's like an indie band thing. People think they've discovered you.

Jim Gaffigan

#96. My mom and dad are both in stand-up comedy, so that's where I started, that's where I got everything. My roots are holding the mic.

Pauly Shore

#97. But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.

Evan Davis

#98. Stand-up comedy is a sickness. Who wouldn't want a room full of people laughing and screaming at you just because of who you are? Nothing is as good, except maybe having a baby.

Howie Mandel

#99. Stand-up comedy seems like a terrifying thing. Objectively. Before anyone has done it, it seems like one of the most frightening things you could conceive, and there's just no shortcut - you just have to do it.

John Oliver

#100. 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