Comedy Club Quotes & Sayings

I started in the club route. I did the alternative scene later on. When I lived in New York, I did the Luna Lounge and stuff, where Janeane Garofalo and David Cross and all those guys worked out of, but I came from a comedy club background. I'm proud of that background. I'm one of the people that really crossed over and did both. — Nick Swardson

With stand-up, I can have an idea, go down the street to a comedy club and work on it, flesh it out, book a venue, people will come, then film it. I do all that myself; I never have to answer to anybody. — Aziz Ansari

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

I did a 'Last Comic Standing' audition in 2006, where you're just performing for three people in a comedy club, in a big comedy club, and I remember them cutting me off, asking about my name in the middle of one of my jokes. Yeah, it's just real weird when you're doing stand-up in that type of sterile, unnatural setting. — Hannibal Buress

In my Comedy Club sets, I just work on what is fresh and try to build that show as long as I can. I don't like to do burnt material on stage. Even though my crowd loves to hear me do old stuff, I don't like to do old stuff. — Ron White

If I had to perform in a comedy club I would bomb; I would be trying too hard. — Henry Rollins

I thought 'Garfunkel and Oates' would be too confusing, but it ended up being confusing in the best of ways because the first time we played a comedy club, it was because they thought we were the real Garfunkel and Oates. — Kate Micucci

The first night you walk down to a comedy club, at least for me, I had my voice, and then I went on stage and I lost it. — Bill Burr

I went to school with Steven Wright, who was the shyest guy I knew, and one day someone suddenly told me that he was in a club doing standup comedy. I went down to his club and he was great. Another friend of mine, who was pretty much a thief by trade, was hosting the show. So I thought, 'If these guys can do it, then so can I.' — Denis Leary

I joined the after-school club, School of Comedy, which progressed wildly, and in quite a Hollywood way. It sounds like 'School of Rock', right up to trying to raise money to pay for a venue in Edinburgh. — Will Poulter

There's nothing like the energy in a small comedy club room or a small theater when it's going really well. I can see everybody's face practically in the whole room. There's no cameras in the way, and it's just me. — Drew Carey

There's a poetry to it, engineer's poetry ... it suggests Haverie - average, you know - certainly you have two lobes, don't you, symmetrical about the rocket's intended azimuth ... hauen, too-smashing someone with a hoe or a club ... off on a voyage of his own here, smiling at no one in particular, bringing in the popular wartime expression ab-hauen, quarterstaff technique, peasant humor, phallic comedy dating back to the ancient Greeks ... Slothrop's first impulse is to get back to what that Plas is into, but something about the man, despite obvious membership in the plot, keeps him listening ... an innocence, maybe a try at being friendly in the only way he has available, sharing what engages and runs him, a love for the Word. — Thomas Pynchon

When you're at a comedy club, if you're not funny, you don't work. People will let you know, whether it's by booing or yelling for you to get out of the club. People are drunk or whatever and they'll let you have it. — Brad Stine

If I find a comedy club where no one's camera works, I'll go. — Chris Rock

The rest of the morning would consist of checking on a pothole in the parking lot of the village clinic and writing up a schedule for the community centre that might finally settle the ongoing feud between the local quilting group and the bridge club.
It was good to be queen. — Molly Harper

The DC Improv food is amazingly edible for a comedy club. — Jim Gaffigan

Okay, so how, exactly, did I get into this mess - up onstage at a comedy club, baking like a bag of French fries under a hot spotlight that shows off my sweat stains( including one that sort of looks like Jabba the Hutt), with about a thousand beady eyeballs drilling into me? — James Patterson

I think it's great training for any comedian to start on cows. Because with cows, you expect them to be bored and just stare at you blankly. And that's exactly what you'll get at a comedy club. If you can toughen up with a cow audience, then you'll never be worried with a human audience. — Kristen Schaal

I very rarely laugh. I remember I used to have a joy at comedy. I remember going to see Sean Lock for the first time live, just in some comedy club when I was 18, and again, just guttural, pure laughter. I didn't know what he was doing; I couldn't see the tricks. — Stephen Merchant

Phunny Business is a breezy, vivid, funny, star-studded and delightful valentine to comedy, entrepreneurship and the All-American impulse to make something out of nothing. The story of comedy club owner/inveterate dreamer Raymond Lambert and his heroic quest to create a safe, productive place for black stand-up comedians to hone their craft and find their voices isn't just a great Chicago story and a great comedy story: it's a flat-out great story, lovingly and engagingly told. — Nathan Rabin

The Comedy Bar is an intimate club, which I prefer. I refuse to play theatres, because large empty spaces make me nervous, and I don't enjoy the echo. I'm no sell out. Literally. — Andy Kindler

I feel that if you can play on the streets or in a comedy club, then in a theatre it's a doddle because you've got an audience. — Simon McBurney

I used to go to the Improvisation Comedy Club every night in Times Square. How I didn't get killed in that area either means that 1) God is watching over me or 2) I am so insignificant to God that he didn't bother having me killed. — Gilbert Gottfried

The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers. — Marc Maron

I can pretty much guarantee that if I do a show in a comedy club, there will be someone who will come out of the audience and tell me the worst joke ever. It's just a guarantee. — Lewis Black

To me, Fight Club was a comedy. When [David] Fincher sent me the book and I read it, the first thing I asked him was, "This is a comedy, right?" he said, "Yeah, that's the whole point," and I said, "Okay, I'm in." I certainly wasn't imagining myself as a dramatic actor when I was running around in my underwear in that film. — Edward Norton

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you, and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up, but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over. To me, that's more pure. — Drew Carey

The fact is that most crime novels contain a good many punchlines. They are just rather darker than the ones you might hear in a comedy club. — Mark Billingham

"Entertainers Of Faith," funnyman Jim Gaffigan isn't ashamed of his Catholicism. He's seen here leaving a New York comedy club with his Bible in hand. — Jim Gaffigan

No one set that I ever do is the same. I mean, if I go to a comedy club, and I perform three sets, all three sets are different because anything can happen in between sets. — Tracy Morgan

I'm near tears at this moment. But I also get an unexpected burst of courage, and here's what it feels like:
I don't care anymore if this guy hates me or badmouths me to other club owners. Because now - and I've never felt this before - I actively want him to hate me. It becomes imperative, for my self-worth, that and asshole like Reed actively loathe me. If someone like this were to like me, to like my comedy, and to like the way I conduct myself professionally, it would mean I suck as a person.
I've encountered this a few times since then. Not very often. But there are those rare occasions - and they're bracing, freeing sensations when they occur - when you absolutely crave someone's disapproval and disgust. You can see it actually helping your career, your social relations, and your life if it becomes known that this person thinks you're shit. — Patton Oswalt

Comedy has sort of been my life-long obsession. I literally obsessed over comedy. I really didn't play sports - for me it was just comedy, computers and chess club; those were my big things. — Chris Hardwick

Why don't those stupid idiots let me in their crappy club for jerks? — Homer Simpson

Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing. — Gilbert Gottfried

The only reason I got into stand-up was because my brother told me to. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I was 17 and my brother went to a comedy club and he said - you can do that. — Adam Sandler

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it. — Howie Mandel

Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it's painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it's extremely painful. — Dick Cavett

Performing comedy in San Francisco to begin with is pretty wild. You've got to - you've got the human game preserve to play off of. And it's a lot of great characters everywhere. You work off that, and then you play the rooms, and eventually you get to a point where you're playing a club that is a comedy club, with other comics. — Robin Williams

I've been driving in the city for years because, as a stand-up in N.Y.C., you can perform at more comedy clubs a night if you have a car. Getting from club to club by subway is too slow at night and too expensive by cab. So, many comics live far out from Manhattan and drive in every night. — Judah Friedlander

I grew up in Iowa, and the improv comedy club Comedy-Sportz across the river in Illinois held auditions. They took me even though I was only 16 - you really had to be 18, but they never checked me for ID. — Eric Christian Olsen

I did auditions at a club called the Comedy Connection. They wanted nothing to do with me. But one night they were doing a night of all women comics, and they invited me to do that. — Paula Poundstone

I did a gig at a comedy club in Bournemouth where they served a buffet while the acts were on. There was the clang of people carving turkey during the set. If you put comedy and turkey side by side, turkey always wins. — Jack Whitehall

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

I feel like comedy had a boys'-club label when we were starting. — Abbi Jacobson

It always pisses me off when I'm calling in to some Morning Zoo radio show to promote God-only-knows what - probably this book, so get ready, I'm comin' - when the DJ actually tries to convince me that there are as many female comics as male ones. Cue hypermasculine Morning Zoo Hacky McGee voice: "So Kath, I don't know what you chicks are always complaining about." To which I respond: "Really? Why don't you call your local comedy club and ask for the Saturday night lineup? I guarantee you the male to female ratio is going to be about nine to one. You dick-wad. — Kathy Griffin

I became aware of applause. It seemed natural. I had been living in the world of romantic comedy and this was the final scene. But it was real. The entire University Club dining room had been watching. I decided to complete the story according to tradition and kissed Rosie. — Graeme Simsion

Every few months I'll pop into a comedy club or go to Vegas. — Kevin James

The whole - it's the economy's bad. It's bad for everybody. I have my own comedy club. I opened it three years ago in a horrible economy. I created jobs. And we just started breaking even after a year and a half, barely. For that entire time, I have had to pay the difference of what we owe in rent and taxes and everything out of my own pocket. — Jon Lovitz

I went to a performance-art high school, and a teacher there was signing me up for open-mic nights at the comedy club. I think about it now, and I think, 'Well, that may be inappropriate,' but it was great!' — Margaret Cho

Comedy is a funny thing, and it's really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title. You would never go to a club just to see "Live music," you would go to a jazz club to see jazz, a blues club to see blues, etc. But when you go to see "standup comedy," if you don't know the performers material, you really don't have any idea what you're gonna get. — Joe Rogan

As an ex-stand up, I can tell you that a comedy club isn't a place you go looking to get the abuse you just can't seem to find in daily life. The stage is a performer's domain. You protect that domain. You are not on stage to take what's given just 'cause you're getting paid. If you are attacked, you retaliate. — John Ridley

If I'm not on tour, I can run down to the comedy club and do a little stand-up. If you're an actor, you can't go - I guess there's forms of it. — Louis C.K.

The Internet has done nothing but good for comedy all around. Comedians no longer have to rely on TV execs and club owners deciding if they are funny or not. — Doug Stanhope

The first rule of book club - is that nobody wants to talk about book club. — Douglas Lewis

It's depressing sitting at a comedy club all night, waiting to get on to do your five or ten minutes of material. — Sandra Bernhard

People don't come to a comedy club simply to hear someone's thoughts, no matter how profound. — Ted Alexandro

I'm now unemployed. It's a weird feeling with no work, but at least there's still golf. Standup comedy is like my core, it's what I do. But I want to be a pro golfer. It's a love/hate relationship with golf. I can come away feeling so serene, and yet, it's the thing that I can let get to me to throw a club and say curses that don't even exist. I'm obsessed with something that won't let me master it. I don't know. I need therapy. — Ray Romano

A comedy club is a place where you work out material, you're trying material. — Chris Rock

I didn't take anything from anyone - first of all. Second of all, I opened a comedy club with money that I saved over 25 years. I created jobs. — Jon Lovitz

In the '90s, comedy was at a very low point, but these days, you've got people like Hannibal Burress, Ron Funches, Maria Bamford - people who can play any club, anywhere. — Andy Kindler

A lot of female comedians will go up there in a sweatshirt and Converses, trying to dress themselves down, because it is sort of a boy's club. I'll go up in my heels. I like that people don't think I'll be funny. I'll take that on. I don't do standup comedy - I do standup and I do comedy, but I don't go up there and do jokes. — Carly Craig

My dream is not Hollywood, but to perform my act in English to 30 people in a Soho comedy club, to show New Yorkers what they look like from the French point of view. — Gad Elmaleh

I'd like to help other comedians and when I get a little older I'd like to open up a nice comedy club that is straight classy, with a straight restaurant and a chef. The whole thing, red carpet, and treating people nice, for people to come back and have a good time. That's the kind of comedy club I want to open up. — Bruce Bruce

Comedy club audiences pay up to $25 per person and another fistful of cash to cover a two-drink minimum, so when they don't like something, they let you know - with silence. — Chris Hardwick

I used to go to the Cleveland Comedy Club all the time. If there was a comic I liked, I'd go see him two or three times that week. Bob Saget was one of those guys. — Drew Carey

I think the process of 'SNL' is still pretty formal. You make an audition tape, your agent sends it in, they watch people's tapes, and then they invite people to perform at a comedy club in Los Angeles or New York. But I don't know how much actual scouting they do online. — Noel Wells

I've seen the end of the universe, and it happens to be in the United States and, oddly enough, it's in Houston, Texas. I know - I was shocked, too. Imagine my surprise when I left a comedy club one day and walked to the end of the block, and there on one corner was a Starbucks, and across the street from that Starbucks, in the exact same building as that Starbucks, there was - a Starbucks. I looked back and forth, thinking the sun was playing tricks with my eyes. That there was a Starbucks across from a Starbucks - and that, my friends, is the end of the universe. — Lewis Black

When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office. — Dylan Moran