Morgan Freeman Quotes

I've never written jokes. I mean, I'll write things on a piece of paper and riff on them onstage.

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

The misconception is that standup comics are always on. I don't know any really funny comics that are annoying and constantly trying to be funny all the time.

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

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.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

Bad improv happens with people who are inexperienced with each other and don't know the craft that well. But bad stand-up is something that could happen to someone at any level in their career.

Everyone tells me I need to do comedy. It's never something that crossed my mind, but to be able to do a true comedy and make people laugh, that would be great.

I need to keep my ad-libbing skills honed and make sure I'm able to banter with people and treat topics a bit more light-heartedly. But as a stand-up, first and foremost, my job is to make sure that I can write the routine that hopefully people will talk about when something big happens.

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.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.

Open mics are a great way to rework your material to see what punchlines land best.

I thought that I was going to be a stand-up comedian or an actress. Turns out, I can't act my way out of a paper bag and stand-up comedy is a lot harder than it appears.

There's a lot of nuances to stand-up that you definitely see when you watch someone like Chris Rock in that his body position is also part of why the joke works.

Too many comics today ramble. By the time they get to the punch line, the audience has either gone to sleep, gone to the bathroom or gone to bed.

Jesse has opened for me extensively on the road so I’ve seen him do hundreds of sets. He is always super funny, has tons of material and the crowds love him. Bottom line, Jesse Joyce is a great comedian.

I don't know what's funny and what's not so I test out all of my material in front of audiences.

As far as just my stand-up is concerned, I don't care about changing anyone's mind. I'm not making an argument. I'm a guy doing comedy.

If you're doing stand-up, there is no fourth wall; you're engaging an audience.

You're always on duty because you're in a constant state of observation. That's one of the challenges of being a comedian. I think one of the other challenges is that, whether we like it or not, it's a profession that requires failure. It doesn't just encourage failure. It requires it because it's all trial and error. You need to know what doesn't work to know what works.

For me, stand-up comedy is a conversation between me and the audience. I have to keep them listening. When I'm making jokes about cake for twenty minutes, I have to make sure my audience is interested and following where I'm going.

I like trying jokes and seeing the response, and if I end up doing it in my act, it won't be 140 characters. Twitter is helpful that way to me. It's like a message in a bottle. But a lot of times I think I tweet the stuff I would like to say to teenage me.