Demetri Martin Quotes

Yeah, I do stand-up, my own type of stand-up.

I always want to go back and do stand-up; I like the freedom.

I don't really do stand-up.

I prefer to tell stories. If it's funny, then I want to do it on stage.

I just like to build. Don't get me wrong: I think stand-up is great, and when someone like Richard Pryor or Steve Martin does stand-up, there's nothing better in the world. But I don't want to watch a lot of stand-ups for two hours. So I can do 45 minutes of stand-up and then say, 'Can we do something else now?'

You have comedians who just do jokes, and they're called comics, not comedians. You have comedians that do bits - a person that has a lot of jokes that have a beginning, a middle and an end, but it's not a real story. And you have someone that does great stories, the one that blends those things together - that person is doing comedy.

I can work as a writer, but I wanted to do stand-up.

So many of these comics are just frustrated singers or actors - they want to get a gig doing a sitcom. It's paint-by-the-numbers comedy, lame joke-telling. They're drawn to it as a career move.

I don't really write jokes down. I tend to have a premise that I work out and test on stage.

I don't consider myself a comic but a performer. A comic tells bad jokes.

Stand-up will always be my first love, and it has been the primary way I've expressed myself since I was 17.

My act's not heavy on pop culture or stories, just lots of jokes.

Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.

If you do a sketch, that's a very short narrative. Stand-up, it's bit-to-bit, minute-long narratives.

Stand-up is the foundation to my career. It's what I started out doing.

I did stand-up. I loved George Carlin and Steve Martin.

I'd love to be a comedian. I've done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.

I'm really bad at writing jokes.

I don't consider myself a comedian because I don't really concern myself too much with jokes.

You know, stand-up comedy is where I pretty much started out.

I just loved stand-up comics as a kid. I'd watch them on 'The Tonight Show,' and I thought what a great craft it was to come out on stage with no instrument or anything and be able to entertain people.

I don't necessarily have a traditional stand-up set.

Stand-up is cool. In stand-up, you get to learn about yourself if you do it from a thoughtful place.

A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.

I've been doing comedy for 20 years now. I started when I was 13 and I think for the first 10 years I was impersonating other people.