Stand Up Comic Quotes & Sayings

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

I remember I was in music class, I was a senior in high school, and my music teacher was like, You should be a stand-up comic, you could imitate anyone. — Heather McDonald

I wanted to do the comic strip. I tried to get it syndicated, and I sent some examples to a syndication company, and they sent me a rejection letter! I wasn't smart enough at the time to realize you shouldn't let rejection letters stop you. I thought that rejection letter meant I was not allowed to be a cartoonist in this world, so I put the rejection letter down and said, well, I'll be a stand-up comedian. — Brian Regan

I was born in Galveston, Texas in 1957 in the middle of a hurricane. I guess because of the drop in the barometric pressure it affected my brain and I was destined to become a stand up comic, although at that age I wasn't aware of my destiny. — Bill Engvall

My mother was the one who totally got behind me as far as, do things and ask questions later. My father would say, "I don't care how dirty you are up there, just be funny." Because they knew me offstage. They knew I was a good guy. They knew my whole plan of becoming the most exciting comedian, visually, ever. A real rock-and-roll stand-up comic. — Andrew Dice Clay

I got 'Delhi Belly' and 'Badmaash Company' because people from the production house had seen my stand-up comic acts in a DVD that was lying in their offices. It's been a weird journey, and I think weird goes with me. — Vir Das

A stand-up comic is judged by every line. Singers get applause at the end of their song no matter how bad they are. — Phyllis Diller

I'm a frustrated stand-up comic. If you hand me a microphone and I get one laugh, then I'll go on for 20 minutes. — Michael Caine

I like my leaders smart and serious. I don't need a stand-up comic. — Kristin Gore

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here. — Alan Rickman

I say this with no fear of contradiction. Jonas Barnes is absolutely, positively the funniest stand-up comic I have ever seen. Of course, I almost never leave my home. Jonas is a great guy and was a big help to me. — Danny Bonaduce

I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs. — Rachel Bloom

Look, you know, you can't please everybody. I'm a stand-up comic. I know that. It doesn't matter how funny you are and how well you do, there's two people that are going to walk out of there hating you. — Billy Gardell

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

Of all the awards, the Stand-up Comic Audience Award is our favorite. It is a chance to honor the performers who spend much of their careers developing their craft and working in the comedy clubs all over America. — George Schlatter

In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director. — Vincent Canby

I'm not a joke guy; I'm not a stand-up comic. — Eugene Levy

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

Being a stand-up comic, this isn't a stepping-stone for me; it's what I do, and this is what I'm always going to do. And even if I do a TV show, the only reasons to do a TV show is to get more people to know me to come out to my stand-up shows. — Bill Burr

The Mob essentially created the term 'stand-up comic' - according to eighty-six-year-old comedian Dick Curtis: 'The Outfit used to manage fighters. A stand-up fighter is a guy that is a puncher. A stand-up guy was a guy who was tough and you could depend on. The Outfit managed fighters and they managed clubs that booked comics, so the term found its way into the lexicon of nightclubs. A guy who just stood there and punched jokes - joke, joke, joke - he was a stand-up comic. — Kliph Nesteroff

I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic. — Steve Martin

The basic function of a comic is stand-up because it's so straightforward and simple. If the audience don't laugh, you didn't do your job. I've had some audiences where I didn't care if they laughed or not because they were either too drunk or stupid. — Marcus Brigstocke

Chris Addison is a stand-up comic, but his ability to act is extraordinary, to be so natural, I've taken 25 years just getting to that level. — Peter Capaldi

I get up around 7 a.m. That's very early for a stand-up comic. Then I'll have breakfast with my husband, the artist Al Ridenour, take my three dogs for a walk and commence with my work. — Margaret Cho

For a stand-up comic, a minute on TV without a laugh was death. And Carson was adamant about the formula. He had recently stopped by the Improv to see Jay Leno and Andy Kaufman perform and had pronounced both of them "not ready," telling Budd Friedman, "They're funny, but they don't have six minutes." By — William Knoedelseder

My ambition was to stop waiting tables. That was how I measured success: finally, I was able to stop waiting tables, and I was able to pay the rent, and that was by being a stand-up comic. Not a very good stand-up comic, but good enough to make a living. — Graham Norton

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

When they meet a stand-up comic, people sometimes remark: 'That must be the hardest job in the world.' Among comedians, only Freddie Starr is not embarrassed and slightly appalled by this remark. — Arthur Smith

I'm a stand up comic and I always sit and slouch, and I got my girlfriend pregnant on my sterile uncles pull-out couch. — Bo Burnham

If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression. — Jim Carrey

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic - you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner. — Jerry Seinfeld

I had no desire to be a stand-up comic until I decided to do it. — Rita Rudner

People called me a hoodlum and a thug. But they didn't tell you I was a carpenter, an architect, a stand-up comic - even a bartender. And a barbecue cook. But they didn't tell you that. — Bobby Seale

The peddling of fear in any form as incentive to faith remains the most egregious sin that can be committed in the name of Jesus. It feels very good to name the enemy and thank God that you are not like "those people." But if Christianity is to survive, someone needs to stand up in the middle of one of these hapless sermons and quote the comic-strip character Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us. — Robin Meyers

Any comic like myself owes everything he has to Lenny Bruce. He was the originator. The godfather of uncensored American stand-up is clearly Lenny Bruce. — Joe Rogan

My grandpa was an amateur stand-up comic when I was growing up ... He'd have me come up onstage with him to deliver a punch line: 'Why is your nose in the middle of your face?' 'Because it's the scenter.' — Rachel Bloom

Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy. — Al Pacino

If Bob Dylan really is an historian in and of himself in his work, in his performances, he is also an historian with a unique sense of humor. There's always been a bit of a stand-up comic in him. — Greil Marcus

I decided that, as a stand-up, I'd position myself as a cerebral, observational comic, making references to Camus and Kierkegaard. I wasn't so much concerned with getting laughs as I was with seeing audience members turn to each other at any given moment and say, "Exactly! — Martin Short

I'm a stand-up comic. Anything else I do besides that is a plus, but stand-up comedy is what I do, it's what I've been doing and it's what I'm going to keep doing. — Dave Attell

I don't see myself as a stand-up comic doing cynical, mean-spirited or disrespectful stuff. I'm very aware that I don't like to disrespect people too much. — Tracey Ullman

Frank Fay [...] became renowned as the first of the great comic emcees - and in many minds the first stand-up comedian. — Kliph Nesteroff

A really good stand-up comic is a poet; it's about the use of language. It can be really poetic. And I like politically conscious comedy. — Sherman Alexie

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

I think there's a core of real anger or misery inside every true stand-up comic. — Scott Raab

And as a stand-up comic, that's the one thing I'm a little uncomfortable with. I'm not uncomfortable with sincerity in my regular life, but, like in terms of my product that I offer, I think that it's weird, because comics used to be way more sincere in the '80s. — Moshe Kasher

An entertainer is someone who pleases others, and an artist tries to please himself. An artist is on a journey: they don't know where they're going, what is going to happen, but they know they are not there yet, and there is some continuity and growth. I think of myself as an entertainer: I'm a performing entertainer, I'm a stand-up comic. But there's an artist at work here, too. One who interprets his world through his own filter. — George Carlin

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

I wouldn't like to find out my GP was messing about with black magic. It would be like discovering that your bank manager was also a stand-up comic. — Christopher Fowler

With the stand-up comic on TV, whether it's Seinfeld or Cosby or Roseanne, more important than their knowledge of how to tell a joke is their knowledge of themselves, or the persona they've created as themselves. So that when you're in a room with writers, you can say, 'Guys, that's a funny line, but I wouldn't say it.' — Bob Newhart

I always had one goal, and that was to be a real funny stand-up comic, and that's pretty much what I'm doing. And everything else is kind of like gravy - TV, movies. — Wanda Sykes