I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It’s like, ‘Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?’ David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I’m just a nobody. I’m a comedian and a writer.
Ego is hilarious – especially the vanity of a comedian. As soon as you see one start worrying about how cool he is or about how many stadiums he can fill, he stops being funny.
I’m the only comedian qualified to navigate a supertanker.
People look upon me primarily as a comedian. I’m trying to get away from that, though I do like comedy.
If you’re watching a comedian on television and he’s making a political point, I would say he’s gotten too serious.
John was the smartest and most amazing comedian I’ve ever worked with. I think more than teaching me about acting or comedy, he taught me about life and the love of people and respect of people.
The only time I get sick of making people laugh is when I’m in a non-writing-joke mode, and I just can’t seem to come up with anything new that’s funny. That’s a tough place to be as a comedian.
I didn’t want to be a comedian. I wanted to be an actor – maybe a comic actor, but a real actor – by real, I mean not a comedian. I wanted to be an actor.
For a comedian, talking to people is the best education.
As a comedian, you can’t tell people that they’re wrong or that they’re stupid.
I’m glad I’m a comedian. Otherwise, my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.
Channel 4’s ‘Feel Good’ is like the friends you make when you move to the big city and take your first, tentative steps into adulting, the flat-share-mates. Comedian Mae Martin is fantastic and the writing is perfect.
My favorite station is BBC Radio 6 Music, in particular Shaun Keaveny’s morning show. It’s on while I’m dashing around getting ready. He’s a comedian and really makes me laugh, and I love his choice of music – often bands I’ve never heard before.
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.
Every barbershop has a guy who wrecks shop every time he comes in. He has the whole barbershop laughing. That doesn’t mean he’s a comedian.
I just really remember the feeling of being a younger comedian who was kind of an outlier for being experimental and weird and how that could feel lonely or hopeless.
I know who Dick Gregory is; I knew what his accomplishments are. I certainly knew him as a comedian and an activist.
I never predicted that I’d be a comedian, but it was something that came so naturally to me. I just felt good doing it.
At one time I wanted to be a comedian.
I have done a wide range of characters and getting acknowledged as a comedian is encouraging for me as an actor.
When you live the life of a comedian, it’s such a state of arrested development. I can’t deal with anything very maturely. I’m still really bad at paying bills or doing anything that would be considered semi-adult. I’m really bad at it. It’s weird I can create and run a TV show, but I can’t pay my phone bill.
I think Eddie Murphy is the greatest comedian. I do think that Richard Pryor is the Godfather, but Eddie Murphy, in my opinion, has every comedic category in his arsenal. He can roast you. He can freestyle. He can host. He was LeBron James before we even saw LeBron James.
I take my music very serious. I don’t call myself a comedian.
Listen, if you a comedian, and you try to jump in the rap lane, it’s not gonna work out the way you think it’s gonna work out. Just cause you got 4 million followers, 5 million followers, them people follow you ’cause you a comedian. So, once you try to rap they are not going to take you serious.
My wife asked me once if I weren’t a comedian what I would do. I couldn’t answer the question. I never imagined doing anything else.
It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don’t talk about the arts there much on career day.
Gilbert Gottfried, I think, is just the most underappreciated comedian in the world. I think that he doesn’t get enough credit for how funny he is.
I’m a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in ‘Once’ there are the musicians that hang out together.
Ricky Gervais would have you believe otherwise, but Sacha Baron Cohen is the most successful British comedian in the world.
A good comedian can make serious political points while also having a giggle.
Growing up as a comedian the most influential person on me was Jon Stewart. He showed that comedy could have a real tangible effect on the world. He showed that comedy could move the needle of society and that a comic can do real things and make a real contribution.
I did say to myself one day, ‘I’d love to be a Jewish comedian,’ but that’s my only memory with any connection to show business.
I’m not a comedian, I’m an actor.
I’ve wanted to be a comedian since I was a kid, and my parents were very supportive of that.
I never thought much about success early on. I only thought about being a comedian – or just being in show business, is really more accurate.
Now we’re here in 2009. My boys are 16 and 18, one’s going to USC film school, and the other seems to be a natural comedian. So now I have to go back into show business as a senior comedian. So I hope to get Walter Brennan-type roles, Gabby Hayes kind of stuff, be the old-timer. We’ll see what happens.
I’m a comedian. Comedians are supposed to be jaded, cynical, angry people. But I’m not: I’m a silly, silly fun boy.
From the very beginning I knew I had to be a comedian, and thus preferred being one.
A comedian’s career span is five or 10 years. I am lucky to have worked with so many distinguished actors and their grandsons.
I feel the life expectancy of a comedian is 30 seconds. If you don’t hook an audience in half-a-minute, you’re dead.
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.
There’s a difference between being a comic and a comedian. A comic is a guy who says funny things, and a comedian is a guy who says things funny, and he has a style and point of view that will last much longer.
Finding your voice as a stand up comedian means deeply knowing who you are as an artist and a human being.
I would loved to be called an actor, and not comedian.
I haven’t met a comedian who is judgemental of other comedians.
Either you’re a political comedian or you’re a stand-up. Just talking about politics isn’t enough. People who talk about airplane food, you don’t call them airplane comedians.
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.
Like with any good art form, if you can entertain people and make them think, it’s an honor. It’s just an honor to be a comedian.
As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.
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 am not a comedian, I am an actor.
I went to the career adviser when I was 16, and tried to explain that I wanted to be a comedian or a writer. That was not on the list.
It’s weird to sit as a comedian. Being still drives me crazy.
I have a hard time describing myself as a standup comedian because I don’t feel like I’m doing stand up jokes more than I am acting like a person who has a bad point of view.
It doesn’t bother me that I’m not a household word on the East Coast. Baton Rouge, Raleigh, Minneapolis – I’m so popular in these cities where you’ve never imagined an East Coast comedian working.
If I want to be a real comedian, I can’t let you dictate my material, so I started creating more new material.
There is a little bit of snobbery with casting, and unless you’re a really successful comedian like Ruth Jones, you don’t get to be in the drama side of things.
The greatest comedian I’ve ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn’t afraid of the silences.
You know, I’ve never thought of myself as a comedian.
I guess I considered myself just sort of a sketch comedian, you know? Actual screenwriting hadn’t really occurred to me as a viable job – I didn’t really know anything about it.
Comedians and impressionists used to be two different showbiz animals entirely, but now there’s no such thing as a comedian who doesn’t do impressions.
I wanted to be a comedian long before I wanted to be a musician, for sure.
What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.
