Hannibal Buress Quotes

I know how to have a conversation, but I've never done improv. I've never taken improv classes.

I took one class at Second City called Improv for Actors, and that was it, and that was only because my agent told me I had to.

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.

I love doing improv, and I swear by it, and I encourage people to take classes, and blah blah blah. But it's always been interesting how it doesn't necessarily translate to television.

When I started out in stand-up, I was already used to speaking in front of people, how to project, control my voice - a lot of learning curves I had overcome.

I think the more you do this and the more comfortable you become on stage, you start speaking more and becoming more of a character in yourself.

Just me onstage with a mike having an intimate relationship with the audience. I don't get nervous for that. I just get excited.

You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well. It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them.

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.

I've been doing stand-up since '89.

Well, actually, the Second City thing came about because I was taking a few improv classes there. I thought that the improv classes would help with my wrestling career, which it has.

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 more you perform and get out there, I guess the more practice you have at it and the better you are and the more comfortable you are on stage.

I started doing improv in college, and I really liked it.

To me, if people really want to improvise, get into classes and learn.

At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.

I always tell comics you got to hang with your stand-up.

The hardest part about improv is getting the audience to relax and enjoy themselves, because most improv is not very good, and the audience is nervous for the performers the whole time. Not that they don't even like the show, but they feel bad for the performers.

I never want to give up stand-up. Because I still get a thrill out of it.

Stand-up. It's the only place I'm comfortable.

I was never in an improv group. But when I went to school, we would do it all day long with friends, not knowing what it was called.

I can't claim to ever have done stand-up.

I'm not a natural comic, I don't think. That's why I gave up stand-up. It was hard. It involved a lot of death. Dying. Dying on stage. But it's one of those jobs you can only learn by doing it.