A Quote by Tim Minchin

You do get a bit paranoid that you're becoming a sort of narcissist, an artistic solipsist when you're doing stand-up.

Tim Minchin

Quote Topics

Artistic Becoming Bit Doing Get Narcissist Paranoid Sort Stand Up

Quote Author

Tim Minchin
Australian - Comedian
Born: October 7, 1975

No, I never really set out to be a stand up. I wanted to be a writer of some sort. I thought I'd do a bit of stand up and hopefully that will lead to stuff and little did I know it kind of snowballed. Before I knew it I was doing stand up 300 nights a year.

Josh Widdicombe

I've worked a lot of historical stuff back in Sweden and there's always conflict with horses. I get a bit paranoid when I'm on them, and they can sense that and they get a bit paranoid. It ends up in this bad spiral where I don't want to be on them, and they don't want me on their backs.

George Blagden

I was a solipsist and a narcissist and much too arrogant. I have a lot more compassion now, but it took a long time.

Andrew Sarris

I started doing comedy just as myself, because I thought, "This is what's expected, you're meant to tell stories and do observations." And then I started to realize that I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I started to doing songs, and I had a little keyboard onstage and would bring in little props. Then I thought about the idea of talking about a character and becoming the character onstage. So, it sort of morphed into being stand-up that was more character based, and I found that's the stuff I got the better reaction from and was more exciting for me.

Chris Lilley

Being a full-time musician back before I had my son, it was sort of too much 'me' all the time. I felt like a bit of a narcissist, always doing just my art - even though I feel like artists are doing a service as well. I needed something a little more literal, instead of writing music and hoping people enjoyed it.

Domino Kirke

If I get back into theater, I think I'd want to do a play. I enjoy singing, but it beats me up a bit. I get super paranoid and self-conscious about my voice.

Chris Wood

I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where I could get on stage. I guess you could get up no matter how bad you were and you didn't have to audition. You just got up. Everything else required an audition and if you auditioned for a TV show, you would stand in line with a hundred other people. But at the clubs, it was okay just to get up, so that's why I started in stand-up.

Steve Martin

Part of doing stand-up is to get things off your chest. It's a bit like being in a psychiatrist's chair - but more enjoyable.

Jack Whitehall

I think the narcissism comes from the industry side of things. The artistic side of a person is never narcissist; it's always empathic, it's always kind and compassionate. It can be difficult to hold onto artistic principles when the business is so glaringly about the product. It's sad.

Jordan Gavaris

I always do get a little bit paranoid when I get a lot of attention. But I get used to it.

Brian Wilson

I started doing stand-up when I was 15 and doing Letterman when I was 20. So I've been doing stand-up comedy and clubs for over 30 years. That's a long time.

Bobcat Goldthwait

If [Sean] doesn't see me a few days or if I'm really, really busy, and I just sort of get a glimpse of him, or if I'm feeling depressed without him even seeing me, he sort of picks up on it. And he starts getting that way. So I can no longer afford to have artistic depressions. If I start wallowing in a depression, he'll start coming down with stuff, so I'm sort of obligated to keep up. And sometimes I can't, because something will make me depressed and sure as hell he'll get a cold or trap his finger in a door or something, and so now I have sort of more reason to stay healthy or bright.

John Lennon

When they first start doing comedy, new comics or even people that have only been doing it three or four years, they're doing an impersonation of a stand-up. This is what I think a stand-up should sound like.

Erik Griffin

I've often made revisions at that stage that turned out to be mistakes because I wasn't really in the rhythm of the story anymore. I see a little bit of writing that doesn't seem to be doing as much work as it should be doing, and right at the end, I will sort of rev it up. But when I finally read the story again, it seems a bit obtrusive.

Alice Munro

I felt that, as time went on, an audience gets to know you and in a weird way, you kind of feel like you get to know the audience a little bit. When I'm doing stand-up gigs now, I feel like I'm doing gigs in front of people I know. I think that's the result of doing late-night shows for so long.