Top 80 Bo Burnham Quotes

Not enough comedy makes you feel something.

People look at me and go, ‘He’s only successful because he’s got a bunch of 16-year-old girls at his back who don’t understand comedy.’ Well, they do. In any case, no one hates me more than I do; no one’s more self-conscious about that than I am.

It’s all about surprising people, and you’re not surprising people if you’re making them laugh every five seconds.

I misdirect the audience, so they have no idea where they are or who they’re listening to.

I’m very left-brain.

I’d much rather wait till my material is up to par, in my opinion, than rush it just so I can stay in the limelight a little longer.

I have a pretty good math mind, so I can see patterns, but I don’t have a great ear. It’s like a tragedy – I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people.

A few people know me, and the few people that do know me only know me because they dig my stuff.

I’d love to do something that doesn’t have my stupid face in front of it. I feel like I’ve exhausted what I can do with my own face.

I like to call everyone that I find slightly annoying a ‘sociopath.’

I enjoy stand up so much because I take time off, and then I’ll be excited to go back to it.

Since I got an audience before I even had a comic voice, my material that really wasn’t worthy of an audience somehow got it, slightly unfairly.

All my fans saw me as some little kid who can’t even afford new jeans in his room, so they’ll support me. That’ll work until I become a success.

In high school, I worked eight hours a day just so I could get into the college of my dreams and say that I got in – and I never went.

I really don’t like to tweet or Instagram anything about the people in my life just because I feel like I signed up for this, and I don’t even know what this is yet. I do know that it could go anywhere, and I really don’t want to sign other people in my life up for it without their permission or consent.

Please don’t stick with me if I start sucking.

I was being called a shock comic. I hated that. It’s so cheap and stupid.

If I had posted my first video a week later, I don’t know if it would have spread like it did. That’s why, with everything I do, I try to enjoy the making of it instead of worrying about the release and reception.

The strange thing was, when I was starting on YouTube, even the paradigm of YouTube and Internet sensation – or whatever – that didn’t really exist. So I didn’t even know that that was a thing.

For me, the only value a celebrity has, or any artist or actor or anything, is the things that they make, you know?

I’d love to write a song that someone else sings that can actually sing really well.

For me, comedy is constantly presented as this fake casualness, like a guy just walked on stage going, ‘This crazy thing happened to me the other day.’ And he’s in front of 3000 people, and he’s acting like an everyman, and he’s getting paid so much money.

Comedy should be a source of positivity. I don’t want to bully people, and I don’t want people to come to my show to feel terrible about something. So I’m actually very open to having a conversation about what I should or shouldn’t say.

When I see someone filming me, I don’t usually think, ‘No, man, don’t put this up online!’ I’d think, ‘Hey man, you don’t get to go to shows very often, put down the camera and enjoy it!’ I love going to theatre and to shows so much.

I grew up listening to Steve Martin and Robin Williams, so I didn’t ever intend to be a musical comedian. I sort of stumbled into it.

Your hard work and talent will not pay off.

The problem for us, as viewers, is that we want famous people who are passionate about the things they’re famous for, because that makes them worthy of the attention. But I think many of those famous people just want to be famous.

The thing is, I always thought I could do stand-up, and so I just stayed focused on the belief that I could succeed.

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.

Life, to me, doesn’t feel like a straightforward story; it doesn’t make sense for me to get up there and just tell a story. Life feels like what my show feels like: chaotic and strange and disconnected.

I’m grateful for every stupid mistake and dumb joke I tried to make.

I write about what I know: teenage dating, overly charged sexuality, all the things that make you uncomfortable.

I just look at Miley Cyrus, and I’m like, ‘Great, you’ve doubled your audience. But you’ve also doubled the number of people that hate you, and doesn’t that hurt?’ It takes a crazy person not to be affected by that.

I do weird things, and people watch.

I became good friends with Jack Whitehall. I think he’s great, such a great dude, and really funny.

I don’t want to put meaning on what I do because I don’t know what it is.

The average person has one Fallopian tube.

The strength of comedy is I don’t have to answer to anybody, but sometimes you want to learn from other people and see your ideas strengthen by other people.

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth.

‘what.’ is bombastic introspection. It’s large, colourful, and loud but hopefully intimate at the same time.

There’s tons of dudes – like David O’Doherty, Tim Key, and Alex Horne – I made a lot of friends with people who are really incredible comics.

I don’t worship comedy; at the end of the day, I don’t fall to the altar of comedy unquestioningly.

I really like maths.

I don’t really care about capitalizing on momentum.

I’ve always liked TV shows that have slightly unlikable leads, where you root for them in spite of a lot of things. I know it’s not common with shows with young people; they have to be so likable. But, I mean, teenagers just generally aren’t very likable. I know I wasn’t as a teenager.

I always wanted to be a comedian but never thought I’d be a musical comedian.

I love Tim Minchin, Bill Bailey, and Hans Teeuwen, and I’m trying to synthesise elements of theatre into my show a little bit more.

I’ve always liked the format of YouTube, sharing things for free, which is a nice exchange between people.

The unlimited amount of information that I have access to has also given me an unlimited threshold for how I need to be stimulated.

I have a show on MTV called ‘Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous.’ I think that’s a secret to a vast majority of America.

I always wanted to be a comedian and actor.

I’ve found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience.

A lot of my fans are really young and seem slightly unsure and nervous about things. Hopefully for young people watching my show, it comes away that I’m pretty weird up there.

I chose to do comedy instead of going to college.

I’m just a giddy teenager who would like to break into show business any way I can.

I don’t want to monitor my audience too closely, as that can really drive you crazy.

I’m bored way too easily. I’m staring at screens half the day. I need to be overstimulated. And how will that express itself artistically?

At one point when I was very young, when I was first starting out, I thought, ‘Well, one day I’ll be able to put all the music away and become a real comedian.’ But then I realized there are amazing musical comedians out there, that musical comedy is probably something I’ll always want to pursue.

Being famous is complete luck, and that’s something you can’t bank on.

I think because of the Internet I was able to study comedy from quite a young age and watch a lot of comedy.

I’m not as incredibly prolific as Louis C. K., and I’m definitely not doing a completely brand-new hour probably by the beginning of the tour.

It feels like we’re always juggling many pieces of information at once or trying out many personas at once. It makes life slightly nonlinear.

I don’t interact with people much.

I think comedy has a range, with multiple peaks in different areas. It’s like trying to compare Beethoven and the Beatles. Sometimes I hear from people, ‘I think you try too hard in your comedy.’ And that’s what I worry about.

Uncharted territory is a good place to be in.

Music is really, really mathematical.

If I was confronted with some 20-year-old American hotshot, I’d hate him.

I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I’m not a complete hypocrite.

I just like to write and then perform.

I always loved bands who would try to change their sound radically album to album, experiment in one album and revert back in another.

I’m still a kid in his bedroom, writing songs and playing them.

I didn’t want to bash young people. I don’t want to bash a kid for dreaming or wanting something or being slightly ambitious – that’s not the problem. The actual problem is with the culture surrounding him.

I’m left-brained, so I’m all about a mathematical approach to language. I’ve always been interested in that.

I’ve come across people referring to themselves as ‘Vine famous.’ Some of them started out by putting up Vines just for fun, then all of a sudden they get a bunch of fans, and a week later their Vines are totally different. They become obsessed with how their videos will be perceived.