Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In my fifth-grade yearbook - it's right up there on the top shell - the last page says, "What about your future?" and under my name, it says, "When I grow up, I would like to be either an actor, a radio announcer, an impersonator or a comedian."
I'm actually a big fan of Kathy Griffin because I think she's really funny. I think she's really self-deprecating, which is something I like to see in a comedian. I think those are really the best comedians: people who can make fun of themselves.
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.
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.
I do what I do because there's nothing else for me to do. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. It is in my soul to spread love and laughter. Even if I wasn't an actress or a comedian, I would be spreading love and laughter [with] whatever I did.
Dave Chappelle is about as gifted as it gets, as a performer and comedian. [...] It's always great to watch him work. He started around fourteen and he's in his forties now, so he's probably been doing it for close to thirty years. He's brilliant.
Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.
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.
The one thing an audience always has in common with a comedian is troubles. The Yiddish word for that is tsuris. You're always putting your tsuris on stage whether you like it or not. No one is untroubled, unless they're just, you know, an imbecile.
I was born with the confidence of an 89-year-old man. So it's strange when people ask, 'What's it like being a female comedian?' It never occurred to me that I'd be limited as a woman - that I couldn't be a scientist, a doctor, or anything I wanted.
I decided I'd try my hand as a stand-up comedian, as I loved making people laugh, and appeared at the Latitude Festival, won the 2007 Laughing Horse New Act of the Year, and was a nominee for winner of the 2007 So You Think You're Funny competition.
When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.
To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
I don't know why you'd go to a comedian and say, "You know what? You have a large menu of items, but this one thing I did not like and therefore, you should be shut down. You should cease to make a living and you should be thrown out in the streets."
I have definitely learned - and this is definitely a human nature thing - that people are willing to, in an interaction with a comedian, admit things and talk about things with candor that they would never admit to a group of friends or an individual.
I was the Head Boy of East High School in 1999. I represent 303 - the area code, not the band - Mile High, until I die. I'm 31, a comedian; I juggle, but I don't glove it. I think waxed mustaches run a very thin line between hipster and 1800s barkeep.
Certainly, when I left New Zealand, there was no career there as a comedian. I was doing more live gigs than anyone, and I was maybe doing three a week. Even then, it would often be the same people in the audience, going, 'I saw you on Tuesday, mate!'
You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.
I think, first of all, you need to love what you're doing, and then this helps in the comedian for its part in everything-but the moment you enjoy what you're doing, you try to express yourself, to find your way, and every time is different, of course.
When you're leading Marines, you don't screw around, so the comedy is limited in uniform. And when you're a comedian, you can't be heavy handed and come across with tales of gore or material that people won't understand, so I try to keep them separate.
As a comedian, I am obligated to tell you the truth, my truth. To share with you my beliefs, my perspective. And I think that we forget sometimes that that's the oath that comics take, that we will go up and share everything - the irreverent, the scary.
What I love about comedians is their instinct is always to go against the grain. Their whole existence is pointing out the elephant in the room. Already you can see audiences are pushing back, but we're the ones who really can take it more than anybody.
There are some actors who have an interest in comedy but they can't say this openly. They do feel insecure about the comedian walking off with all the applause. In fact, I have seen my lines being changed and scenes being reworked to suit certain actors.
I think a lot of people think that we [comedians] are nerveless people in the theatre, that we don't feel that kind of terror which traditionally anyone who has to do any public speaking feels. It's worse for actors, because our livelihood depends on it.
I think, first of all, you need to love what you're doing, and then this helps in the comedian for its part in everything - but the moment you enjoy what you're doing, you try to express yourself, to find your way, and every time is different, of course.
To be honest, I've always been really interested in the role of the host, whether it's our kind of Billy Crystal-style traditional awards show host or when you have someone like Louis C.K. or a more edgy stand-up comedian do their take on a hosting role.
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.
I went to L.A. to become an actress, and I started from the ground up. I worked as an extra, and then I started taking this joke-writing class because it was free. I didn't want to be a comedian, but I was like, 'Free education? Yeah, I'll take a class.'
Reggie Watts is a most unusual talent: a huge vocal range, a natural musicality, and a sidesplitting wit. Is he a comedian? A singer? A performance artist? I've seen him a few times since then and I still can't decide. Whatever, he ain't like nobody else.
There's many hundreds of millions of people who have jobs harder than comedians. And I also remind myself of that everyday. No matter how frustrating this can be, I'm very lucky that I've been able to cobble together a little life where this is what I do.
I'll take anyone I can get that will pay money to see me. And if there's more of me in the world, people who think they're good people and comedians who have a good message or whatever, then that's great. If there's some kind of balance there that's good.
Once people enjoy what I do, I don't mind if they call me a magician or an illusionist or a hypnotist, entertainer, comedian, whatever people want to call me. I'm comfortable with all of the above, so I don't really mind at all what people want to call me.
I don't have a lot of recreation time. I've always been under the assumption that if you're selling tickets you need to work. The kind of success that's happened to me maybe only happens to one comedian every twenty years and so I'm on the road constantly.
Every day I do one or two podcasts that 92 percent of people never will hear. I'm constantly producing, constantly making jokes for Twitter. There's a lot of pressure there. On the flip side, I think having to produce like that makes you a better comedian.
While painting I noticed a piece of madras cloth on the floor. As usual, my mind started working overtime and a pair of scissors and a small amount of glue later...I created THE COMEDIAN. Everybody loved the uniqueness of the painting. It was indeed a hit.
For every stand-up comedian, Just for Laughs is our Super Bowl. Every comic in the world goes to Just for Laughs in Montreal. And they presented me with the Stand-Up Comedian of the Year award for 2018. This is my Oscar; this is my Emmy. That's my baby now.
My mum and dad were incredibly supportive - although I suspect my dad would have preferred me to go the university route. However, I know they were extremely proud when I won the 2011 BAFTA Best Actor for playing comedian Eric Morecambe in 'Eric and Ernie.'
I think there is more comedians now than ever, more venues now than ever. There are stand-ups who live in towns where they don't have many comedy clubs where they are organizing more comedy nights in bars. I just think this is a fantastic time for stand up.
I don't consider myself a comedian, but you work with some comedians, and sometimes these guys are incredible on their feet - it's just amazing - and that's not what I do. But it's always fun, and I don't really care as long as the character is interesting.
If I'm doing something on stage, and it evokes an emotion, then I might show that emotion, but I also don't believe in being a preacher. If you have a point, that's a bonus. But the funny has to come first; otherwise, you shouldn't call yourself a comedian.
Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.
Michael Ian Black wears many hats. He's a stand-up comedian, a comedic actor, he's now a writer-director so he knew how to work with all of us. And furthermore, because so much of his career is based on improvisation he gave us the freedom to do that as well.
I mean, sometimes... a comedian becomes an actor, and they just don't deliver, because the bottom line of comedy is to be funny, and the bottom line of acting is to be truthful, and they get that mixed up sometimes, or don't even notice that that's the thing.
I'd never tried as hard with anything as I did with 'The Office,' and it was one of the things I'm proud of. I wasn't trying to be famous or a comedian, but this opportunity came along when I was 38 or 39. It came late, and I couldn't have been prouder of it.
It's funny - almost every comedian that I started out with moved to L.A., except for my two friends Hannibal Buress and Amy Schumer. And my two friends that are doing the best in comedy, the most successful friends I have, are Hannibal Buress and Amy Schumer.
I don't think anything's cruel - if you're so sensitive these days that you see cruelty everywhere, unfortunately every time a comedian comes on television, you're going to accuse him of cruelty, because that's the kind of humour that the English people enjoy.
I think it's actually a misperception that I am a comedic actress. I do more drama than comedy but very little of it has been seen. When you are in big funny movies and they do well and your little part in it kind of explodes people perceive you as a comedian.
All comedians are people who really deeply consider the human experience not only a dirty trick perpetrated by a totally meaningless procedure of accidents, but an unbearable ordeal every day, which can be made tolerable only by mockery in one form or another.
For comedians, we're all kind of tweeting our thoughts instead of spending time developing them. You can gauge how good a joke might be by how many times it gets retweeted, but it takes discipline to go back through the tweets and then develop jokes from them.
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.