A Quote by Jackie Mason

I knew nothing about professional comedians when I became a comedian. I was a rabbi. So I had no professional comedians to learn from.

Jackie Mason

Quote Topics

About Became Comedian Comedians Had Knew Learn Nothing Professional Rabbi

Quote Author

Jackie Mason
American - Comedian
Born: June 9, 1931

I try to stay with it and I try to stay in contact with comedians and just keep comedians in my life 'cause comedians are their own species. If you get away from them, especially as a comedian, I think it's dangerous.

Chris Rock

I'm a comedian because I want people to like me. That's really why all comedians are comedians.

Tim Minchin

I'm a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in 'Once' there are the musicians that hang out together.

Mike Birbiglia

Some street jokes are just timeless. There's an old street joke about comedians. The joke is that a beautiful girl comes up to a comedian at the end of the night and says, "I saw your show tonight, and I just loved it. I want to go home with you, and I'll do anything you want." And the comedian says, "Were you at the 7 or the 9?" That's just a perfect joke, because it points out how egomaniacal and obsessive comedians are. Even though I'm not waiting for a groupie, I can completely understand it. It just defines how comedians are driven.

Amy Schumer

When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.

Artie Lange

There are a lot of comedians that were bullied and picked on, and that's why they became comedians. Survival of the fittest.

Tiffany Haddish

After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.

Scott Aukerman

People are going to label you anyway, but the one that bugs me the most is when they say, 'One of the funniest female comedians.' There's s no 'funniest male comedians.' You're either a funny comedian, or you're not!

Wanda Sykes

You can't expect everyone to laugh or applaud you for doing edgy things. Sometimes you'll miss. But I think comedians are artists and there's a value in failure. It kind of works both ways between comedians and audiences. The audience has to understand that comedians are going to sometimes tell a joke that doesn't work out with dark subjects, and the comedian has to understand that sometimes they 'll fail and it's not the audience's fault for not getting it or loving it.

Anthony Jeselnik

I grew up skateboarding; it was fun. I didn't think about money, I didn't know how much professional skateboarders made. I just knew that if I became a professional skateboarder, I would achieve a lot and get to travel and do these great things.

Jason Lee

Professional comedians, surprisingly, have a lack of humor. They're insensitive to the insanity of our times.

Mort Sahl

I wasn't even a big comedy nerd. A lot of the comedians I know - a lot of my friends are comedians - they knew a lot about comedy growing up.

Demetri Martin

I've always believed that there are funny people everywhere, but they're just not comedians. In fact, some of my best comedic inspirations were not professional entertainers.

Steve Martin

I have a very high respect for professional comedians. What they do astonishes me. You have to be really smart and absorb everything, repackage it, bring it back to the person, and make them laugh at themselves. I can make people laugh during my talks because they didn't come to have me make them laugh. It's added value. So my job is way easier than that of a professional comic.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

You can be good at comedy, which means you'll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven't had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.