Top 65 Quotes & Sayings by Ari Shaffir

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American comedian Ari Shaffir.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
Ari Shaffir

Ari David Shaffir is a comedian, actor, podcaster, writer, and producer. He produces and hosts the Skeptic Tank podcast. He also co-hosts the podcast Punch Drunk Sports with Jayson Thibault and Sam Tripoli, and is a regular guest on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He created and previously hosted and produced the This is Not Happening television series, an adaptation of his monthly stand-up show.

Very rarely are you going to see a story about a comic winning a fight. Yeah we're all degenerates in some way and we're all awful people, so we just show our weaknesses.
I got an award for Most Improved Player for volleyball in tenth grade that I cared about a lot.
Leonard Cohen kept his Jew name. He's so cool. It's too bad he died. — © Ari Shaffir
Leonard Cohen kept his Jew name. He's so cool. It's too bad he died.
The worst is when you bomb and when you bomb in front of someone you're trying to impress. That's the worst.
I'm like an overgrown child! I don't know how to do anything!
Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura... those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.
No one's telling Tarantino what to do. You might like it or you might not like it, but the reality is he's getting his own vision out there.
When Joe Rogan started his podcasts he'd have me, Joe Diaz, and all our friends help him for the first few. And I told him 'Dude, no one will listen to audio that's over an hour long. You've got to end it at 59:59 or less.' And I was way wrong.
I genuinely like haggis. Everybody told me I was supposed to hate it, but I really did enjoy it.
I'm not as much a fan of the venues as I am the comics who inhabit them. I don't care if it's a bomb shelter, a bus, or a theater, if I'm watching somebody who makes me laugh, I'm down.
Laughs, just laughs. It's the only motivation of a comic.
At The Comedy Store, night after night, the crowds are fuller. It used to be Tuesday at 9 you'd have to start with six people. Now you come in on Tuesdays and it's 100-plus people and you're like, 'Really? On a Tuesday?'
You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting. — © Ari Shaffir
You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting.
I love doing my podcast, but it's not my art form. I don't have to work on it. It's off the cuff.
I'm pretty much only friends with comedians.
I think you're a comedian as soon as you start. I don't think there's a moment where you become a full comic.
The fact that I didn't believe in God was something that I just didn't consider. And then when I did, it was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm out.'
Being Orthodox Jewish is kind of like being raised on like network sitcoms.
I was on the outside of the industry. So I started a podcast early in the podcast boom and that caught on a little. I made an album that went to No. 1 on the iTunes charts. I made my own special. I started my own storytelling show.
Being Jewish is a culture and a religion; we have food, music, and land specific to us.
My father said that I was lower than a dog, because even a dog believes in God.
I'm not intentionally dirty. It just kind of happens. It's not like I'm a shock comic who's looking to walk people.
That anonymity that comes with talking in front of a crowd of people you've never met allows you to reveal anything, because you don't really have to associate with any one of them.
Get out of people's way and let them be who they are. If they make a mistake, fine, that's on them.
As long as you have your own apartment and you can pretty much make rent for the next year, you're golden!
I grew up so conservative. I grew up as an orthodox Jew.
Sometimes I start off shows by explaining to people that it's just a bunch of stories - I always say 'It's like standup, just less funny.'
I get lost a lot.
I want to do a travel book.
I'm just a weird mix of immature and intelligent and I like to share my point of view and who I am.
I lived with my parents until I was 25.
I have a running daydream about winning an Oscar and giving my speech about how ridiculous it is to rank art. And then I'd call them all sycophants and leave the statue at the podium as I walked away.
I never had good grades until I dropped out of religion. And then suddenly, my grades went up.
The Comedy Store is my home!
The only threat is a growing pushback from militant liberals who seek to destroy free expression as they look to limit the speech of anyone who has feelings they find objectionable. It makes comics tentative to push boundaries and freely talk about the thoughts in their heads. That part is terrible for development.
To me, every time it goes badly I see it as a good thing - because that means I'm one step closer to where I want to be.
I used to get a lot of death threats. After a while I realized that no one's gonna do anything or they would've.
I worked for the Comedy Store as an employee trying to become a paid regular. I had this dream of achieving a half hour special on TV. — © Ari Shaffir
I worked for the Comedy Store as an employee trying to become a paid regular. I had this dream of achieving a half hour special on TV.
People get mad at bad comedy. Way more mad than at bad novels.
Once I started getting more successful, I just stopped caring completely - 'I'll just do exactly what I want. It doesn't matter.'
If I focus solely on developing new material, then I can get a new 45 minute to an hour in about six months. Then I'll work on it and work on it and can make it killer within another six months or so.
If you like a conversational style of comedy, if you like comedy that's a little dangerous, I'm your guy.
Failing is part of my process. A new bit never works the first time. I figure I have to bomb 7 times to make it good. So I tweak it.
One thing I hate in ethnic comedy is giving the audience the opportunity to laugh in a racist way at a thing. A lot of times dwarf comedians will do that, Arab comics, and gay comics will do it; everyone is laughing, but they're not laughing at the joke, they're laughing at this crazy character.
Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.
Marc Maron yells at people. I have a memory of him yelling at Jonah Ray from offstage about something he was saying, just fun stuff.
Stage fright is a real thing. It's debilitating to some people.
The biggest thing I lost when I left religion was that sense of community and the culture. It was an unexpected kind of free-falling. When I was in it, I didn't understand how much the community was a part of my life.
I hate being rejected. — © Ari Shaffir
I hate being rejected.
My CD, my first release, was at the Comedy Works in Denver, one of the best clubs in the country.
I was playing basketball, and I had hemorrhoids in high school.
It's all about the art. It's not about getting on TV or not getting on TV.
Figure out a way to get back onstage because once you do it a few times you'll get over it. Unless it's like a clinical thing. I don't know about clinical like stage fright, that might be worse than what I'm talking about. But if it's normal stage fright get over it.
When people tell me to do a clean show, I'm like, 'Guys, I don't even understand your thoughts anymore.' What, you can't say a curse word? Nobody thinks that way!
Everyone in L.A. talks about getting an agent or a manager in terms of getting on a sitcom or getting on a movie or doing something else.
I'm a bit of an introvert, so after talking for an hour and then shaking hands and taking pictures with the people who came out, I kind of need to be alone for a bit to get away from all stimuli.
I'm a cultural Jew, I was raised with it, so I'm still into it, like gefilte fish with kugel.
I know how lazy I am. So if I have to go somewhere else I can't get to easily, I talk myself out of it.
I don't vote and I don't follow who's trying to rule us. The revolution is coming. Until then, I'll just watch 'Game of Thrones.'
It's not like I have campaigns, I don't want to be an activist or anything.
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