Top 386 Standup Quotes & Sayings

I come from standup and improv.

I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of those things.

Podcasts feature comedians being as funny as they can be in a non-censored situation. It's really akin to standup in a way. When you go see a comedian in standup, that is the most pure, unadulterated form of their art.

I think comedians get too much credit or too much criticism for the style of comedy they do, and they generally do the style of comedy that works for them. [...] There's no kind of shrewd calculation going into the type of standup we all do. It's like David Cross is supposed to be doing the David Cross' type of standup.

I always want my standup act to appeal to everybody in the room, and when I started standup, and I would see people talk about their kids and their wife, and I'd always cringe a little bit, like, 'I can't get a date, I don't know what you're talking about.'

I'm a standup comedian who gets to act. I'm never going to not do standup. I love doing it and when I go through periods where I'm doing a lot of acting work, I still do standup.

Growing up, I didn't know anything about comedy and didn't know anything about comedians or what standup was. I grew up in the projects with no dream of anything, it was in my formatting when i got older and started talking to my friends about how I felt, they would be like, "dude, that's funny." Then one day my friend was like, "Dude, you don't understand how funny you are, you need to do standup"!

I never decided I wanted to be an actor. I just started doing standup because I love standup. Everything else has sort of been these tiny steps leading to this.

In standup, you look for a common ground that people have.

It's a young man's game - standup comedy.

I think I'm better wired for television. I love variety as far as a project. I'm easily bored and the schedule of a television show, it just keeps you going. I love theater and I think doing a sitcom in front of a live audience is the closest you can get to theater, and it's really the best mix of like standup and theater, is really a sitcom. I started as a standup and I still continue to do that as well, so I think I'm just a TV guy and happy for it. I think my movie career is kind of like my social life, I'm picky and not in demand. So it perhaps is working out.

If you like standup and decide that it's overtaking your life and want to hate it, watch 1,000 standup comedians who are trying to get on a TV show.

I love standup comedians. I really do.

I just like doing standup, that's all I'm interested in or good at.

I'd been doing standup since college.

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.

I can't imagine a time I don't want to do standup.

I do standup once a year, when I host the CMAs.

We come from a live background of sketch improv and standup.

When I was doing standup, I always wanted to get out of the standup world and take it back into the theatrical world, like with 'No Cure For Cancer.'

I don't do standup.

I know I'm going to be doing standup for the rest of my life.

I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine.

I continue to do standup because there's a connection with a live audience - there are skills that you do learn as a standup comedian that help you on a set.

I'm really good at standup. I always win at standup.

Actors, you have to wait for people to give you work, or you have to make your own stuff. But standup, I could just say, 'I want to do standup in 30 minutes,' and I can go do standup. Or I could just say, 'I want to do standup in a few weeks in this city.'

I still do standup.

Genuinely love doing standup and I'm a comedian first, so for me what makes my standup special is the fact that I don't have to adapt or adjust. I am who I am. I appeal to everyone, hence in the movie doing a world tour.

I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.

If there are things that are off limits, why would you do standup?

As far as standup, everybody has a vehicle they are driving. If what you do works, it's like playing golf. If you can master that one swing over and over again, you will be successful. That's what standup is. You have to have a central move and it has to be yours. You have to own your comedy, own what you do.

The energy of the metal is what I've always loved and the energy I do on stage with standup, I mean, I'm not Metallica, but I've always extremely attracted and driven by that energy and the thought-provoking lyrics and drive. That's an attitude every standup show I go in. I go in to crush your face.

I'm a standup comedian, so I need people.

People say I'm good at standup. I don't even think I'm that great at standup. I just hit hard. I don't think I'm super technical or anything like that. I got a couple knockouts. I think I just hit hard more than anything.

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.

I wanted to do comedy, but I didn't grow up wanting to be a standup.

I'm not a standup, but I play one on TV.

I started as a standup comic and an actor.

In standup, you don't have anything near you except a microphone.

I love standup and I haven't given it up.

I graduated from Improv Olympic. I used to do standup comedy.

In my early years doing standup, I bombed a lot.

Hopefully standup will become special again.

Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.

If I could make the same amount of money doing standup it would be no contest. The problem is that if you do make that kind of money doing standup, it's not in clubs, it's in big auditoriums and large venues, and I really think something is lost when you do standup for a big crowd.

I got into standup because I wanted to be an actor, and then I ended up loving standup for the next eleven years.

There are two types of actors. There's the actors who can acknowledge that they could never do standup comedy. Then there's the pretentious ones, who believe that acting is harder than standup comedy. I definitely don't think it is. I also think making a comedy is substantially harder than making a drama.

Is it my end-all and be-all to become a standup comic? No.

I'm more of a sketch guy than a standup.

I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.

Louis C. K. is one of my all time favorite standup comedians.

I listen to a lot of standup comics.

I really love standup, and I really love writing standup.

I feel like most standup comedians do it the way I did it, where you just go to open mics and cut your teeth. Sketch and improv - they take a lot of classes. It's not unusual, the way I did it. It's just that, with standup, no one knows how to start because there's no book for it; there's no place you can really go.

I've actually never done standup before.

If you're going to be a good standup, or a successful standup, or a standup who can work for money, you have to eliminate the possibility of dying quickly.

When I was doing standup, I always wanted to get out of the standup world and take it back into the theatrical world, like with "No Cure For Cancer."

In standup, you must be able to hypnotize the audience.

I did standup for a lot of years, too, but when you come out as a standup, you get the feeling from a crowd - it's a kind of a 'make me laugh' attitude. But when you come out as an improvisor, they realize that they're suggesting everything you do. So they're already invested in the scene, and they actually want it to work.

Trying my hand at standup was exciting to me.