Top 76 Stand Up Comedian Quotes
#1. I'm best known as a stand-up comedian, but I'm a good actor in the right role.
Marcus Brigstocke
#2. I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.
Chris Tucker
#3. I also could see myself as a stand-up comedian, a fashion designer (for people of all sizes), a hairdresser, an earnest and eventually burnt-out politician, or the owner of a small bistro. But I fear that, without poetry, I would have simply been going through the motions.
Denise Duhamel
#4. George Carlin was great right up to the end of his life. But Richard Pryor was probably the best, most gifted stand-up comedian who will ever live.
Denis Leary
#5. A stand-up comedian faces the audiences and gets their immediate feedback. I hide behind the comic strip, and unless people write to me, I don't know what they think.
Stephan Pastis
#6. The real focus at first is to just become a good stand-up comedian, and then when you get to a certain level, then they allow you to do other things. You feel if you're overwhelmed by something or if you're not.
Jon Stewart
#7. I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian, even as a kid. Me and my dad would watch 'Evening at the Improv' on A&E.
Adam DeVine
#8. I've loved the Internet space in terms of creative content control and ownership, the things I haven't had since I started as a stand-up comedian.
Kevin Pollak
#9. I come from the stage. I started my career as a stand-up comedian and then later on became an actor.
Patrick Huard
#10. It takes a while to realize that just because you're a stand-up comedian and you do comedy, you're not going to be good at all comedy.
Jenny Slate
#11. 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.
Wendy Liebman
#12. I was a stand-up comedian for 10 years, if you can believe it. And I gave it up at age 22.
Samm Levine
#13. I started as a stand-up comedian. I wanted to be Carol Burnett when I was growing up.
Stephanie Miller
#14. He'd promise to see an organic nutritionist, aromatherapist, deep-tissue masseuse, feng shui consultant, yoga master, and Mormon stand-up comedian if those promises would help him get off this mountain.
Sherman Alexie
#15. Luckily, I'm not a stand-up comedian, so I don't get the fear of standing on stage in front of a dead audience: my humorous pieces have to make it past an editor before they get exposed to the public.
Charles Stross
#16. You don't need to be stable to be a stand-up comedian.
David Steinberg
#17. The skill of a good actor is to make it always seem like you're in that fantastically spontaneous moment. Very often, a stand-up comedian has a different instinct, which is to reinvent. Once you've laid down some material, and made them laugh, you move on and find some new material.
Colin Firth
#18. To be No. 1 on the 'New York Times' best-seller list, well, that's alarming. Having been a stand-up comedian, I think it's surprising to a lot of people that I had the insight I had.
Steve Harvey
#19. I started out as a stand-up comedian. And that's what I'm most comfortable doing.
Eddie Murphy
#20. I'm a stand-up comedian-turned-actor-turned-vampire at night.
Vir Das
#21. I tell people I'm a stand-up comedian two hours a week. The rest of the time, I'm somebody's husband, I'm somebody's father. I'm a man. I take great pride in that.
Steve Harvey
#22. Whatever you want to do in the industry, do it on the smallest level at first. If you want to be a writer, write a screenplay in your house. If you want to be an actor, put on a one-man show. If you want to be a stand-up comedian, go to an open mic.
Ike Barinholtz
#23. I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor ... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.
Steve Carell
#24. I don't consider myself a stand-up comedian. I consider myself a performer; a comic as opposed to stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedians stand there and do their bits; I break every rule in creation. If there's a rule that can be broken in stand-up, I'll do it.
J. B. Smoove
#25. I'm probably more of a stand-up comedian than an actor.
Kevin Nealon
#27. 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
#28. I started performing as a stand-up comedian on my own in the mid-1990s.
Mark Billingham
#29. Whoever calls and asks me to do stuff and obviously, with having your own TV show, people want you to get involved. They know you're a stand-up comedian so they're always looking for somebody funny to host an event.
Chelsea Handler
#30. I've been in radio, God, twenty years. I started as a stand-up comedian. I wanted to be Carol Burnett when I was growing up. Radio was just kind of an accident. I did morning radio in my hometown of Buffalo, then went to Rochester, then Chicago, and then New York.
Stephanie Miller
#31. 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.
Margaret Cho
#32. When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?"
Mitch Hedberg
#33. Canadian comedians are generally more well-rounded ... They have to do a lot more. In order to have a career in this country, you have to do everything. And in the States you can narrow-cast, you can be just a sitcom performer or a stand-up comedian or a sketch performer.
Scott Thompson
#34. 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
#35. I've been a stand-up comedian for years, and I can be silly.
Diane Neal
#36. Frank Fay [...] became renowned as the first of the great comic emcees - and in many minds the first stand-up comedian.
Kliph Nesteroff
#37. People expect comedy from me but I am not just a stand-up comedian anymore. I act on stage, host 'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa' and also conduct interviews on my show. I have grown as a person and an artiste.
Kapil Sharma
#38. Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improviser. His parables are great one-liners.
Camille Paglia
#39. A stand-up comedian will never be the life of a party. Instead, he will be the guy who is standing at a corner and observing people.
Vir Das
#40. And what is the reaction of the British politcal class? Well the Lib Dems, still think that the Euro is a success! I don't quiet think where Cleggy gets this from, I don't know. Prehaps he is cosidering an alternative career, as a stand up comedian, once he's out of politics.
Nigel Farage
#41. I don't have any delusions. I'm not a novelist - I'm a comedian who writes. I love doing the stand-up and the touring and the albums and all that, but it's pretty amazing to go into a library and see your book there.
Jim Gaffigan
#42. One night while Joan Rivers was bombing at the Duplex in the Village, Lenny Bruce walked in and caught her act. He sent a note backstage: 'You're right and they're wrong.
Kliph Nesteroff
#43. I love comedy. I don't approach it any different. I'm not a comedian. I'm not a stand-up. I just do it like a part and personally, I love to watch comedies. If you don't get to do what you like to watch you get frustrated.
Uma Thurman
#44. One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.
Bob Newhart
#45. 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
#46. 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
#47. I better start doing stand up comedy in Spanish before every comedian in Mexico translates my jokes.
Felipe Esparza
#48. What I like about stand-up is, it's truthful. I'm not up there trying to get laid or look cool. I'm up there because I really love it, and it makes people happier.
Jay Mohr
#49. Fuck it ... That's really the attitude that keeps a family together, it's not "we love each other", it's just "fuck it, man.
Louis C.K.
#50. I have this very abstract idea in my head. I wouldn't even want to call it stand-up, because stand-up conjures in one's mind a comedian with a microphone standing onstage under a spotlight telling jokes to an audience. The direction I'm going in is eventually, you won't know if it's a joke or not.
Garry Shandling
#51. In my first stand-up acts there wasn't material even. You know, I'd go on stage and cry and read a Dear John letter or gut fish on stage. I could be odd - and it's what interested me as a comedian.
Bobcat Goldthwait
#52. When I used to watch comedians with my dad, he laid it all out for me. He wanted to be a comedian himself, and he was so funny. We'd watch stand-up on TV, and he'd tell me the subtext of what they were saying.
Roseanne Barr
#53. If you make a bad movie about stand-up, then comedians will mock you for the rest of your life.
Judd Apatow
#54. I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself.
Aasif Mandvi
#55. I am a comedian and I started in stand-up when I was 22.
Jenny Slate
#56. For stand-up comedians that go onstage and get to write and perform and direct, and do all these things, the allure of a television show is still there but if it doesn't offer a level of creative fulfillment, it's oddly unappealing.
Jim Gaffigan
#57. As a standup comedian, you have to develop a sense of fearlessness. It's really important for your livelihood and your well-being. And if you don't do that, you're going to fail; you're never going to be able to stand up on the cliff and jump off.
John DiMaggio
#58. I knew that drinking and doing stand-up was going to make me less of an effective comedian. And I just had a lot invested in wanting to be a really good comedian and so I stopped for that reason.
Greg Fitzsimmons
#59. I love stand-up. I look at it as a way to always stay productive. I couldn't imagine only being an actor or a writer. Because what the hell do I do when I'm not working? Mope?
Hannibal Buress
#60. 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
#61. I still like doing stand-up now, but it's not the same. It used to be that I was out there with five other comedians. Now I usually just do it alone.
Adam Sandler
#62. As a comedian, I can walk out in front of 5000 people and not worry about a thing. Not a thing, believe me. But to stand up a face a camera and crew of maybe 15 guys and get up tight about it - to me that's weird.
Bill Cosby
#63. I don't think of myself as a comedian, but as an artist, a scientist and chemist who just happens to be funny. I started doing stand-up to add another level to my game. I feel that I'm a young rookie with a veteran's skill.
Marlon Wayans
#64. You spend so much time in the world of virtual that the actual - which nothing is more actual than stand-up - it's a painful experience for the audience, and the comedian a lot of time - we miss that.
Jerry Seinfeld
#65. 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
#66. 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
#67. I think with a comedian, when you get to the point of a greatest hits, it's kind of an acknowledgment that you've been doing stand-up a long time, which not very many people do.
Jeff Foxworthy
#68. Meal isn't over when I'm full. Meal's over when I hate myself.
Patton Oswalt
#69. I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.
Ian McKellen
#70. 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
#71. Nobody really wants to be a stand-up, they want to get on TV.
Chris Rock
#72. I started doing stand-up at the age of 20. This was back in 1976, around the time (coincidence?) that the first comedy clubs were starting. The young comedians of today gasp when I tell them how many shows I did that first year: 500. Five nights a week.
Emo Philips
#73. I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character.
Eugene Levy
#74. Frank Fay turned into the most consistent stand-up comic of the late 1920s and essentially changed the art form. Crowds and critics eventually came to accept a man standing alone, cracking wise. No longer did Fay bill himself as a 'Nut Monologist.
Kliph Nesteroff
#75. I think when I started doing stand-up, that's when I really tried to question everything in my belief system which is - I think a pretty important part of being a comedian is really questioning things.
Jim Gaffigan
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