John Mulaney Quotes

When I come out to do my stand-up set, I pretty much get bombarded with lines from movies. You try to play off it a little bit, but that's what people want to see.

I don't really like doing big stand-up. Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up. I've seen people in theaters, and it just doesn't work, because you're talking to the guy next to you the whole time.

Stand-up will always come first. I've been doing it for 22 years, and nothing compares to that connection you have with the audience. It's euphoric.

In my Comedy Club sets, I just work on what is fresh and try to build that show as long as I can. I don't like to do burnt material on stage. Even though my crowd loves to hear me do old stuff, I don't like to do old stuff.

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

Standup is more me talking the entire time. There's definitely an exchange of energy because that room, that audience, is giving back.

By the way, to perform in front of Don Rickles, it 's not nerve-wrecking. It 's enjoyable, i am enjoying Jeff Garlin. I hope I perform in front of Don Rickles every night of my life !

I think a theater show is a pure version of me doing my material. The theater crowd is a bit more polite, there really aren't hecklers, and there are a lot of people there to see me, and they're excited about the jokes and hanging out with me for a show.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

What I really like about stand-up is there's 100 people in a room, and you can just feel the pulse. It's very human.

I make people laugh hard; I'm a comic, that's just the way it is. And I make them laugh because I'm funny, not because I'm filthy. The subject matter is dirty, but the pictures I paint are really funny. A lot of comics don't understand that that's what it's about. It's just, "I'll be dirty and they'll laugh." Nobody's becoming a superstar that way.

I've been in theaters. Like Brian Regan, who I love - loved him so much more when he did the Improvs. And then in a big theater - nobody's that good.

I can pretty much guarantee that if I do a show in a comedy club, there will be someone who will come out of the audience and tell me the worst joke ever. It's just a guarantee.

When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.

Speaking for myself, I try to go out there on the stage and make jokes with people, so I'm not really thinking about the impact anything I have. If it does resonate with people, that's really great.

Comedy crowds - we always want to come out and ask you, 'How you feeling?' We always say that, 'By a round of applause, how do you feel?' Right? 'By a round of applause, how you feeling?' It's the only place in the world that you judge how you're feeling by a round of applause... There's never like a car accident, people all over the ground, people running over - 'Ma'am! Ma'am! By a round of applause, how do you feel? By a round of applause - she's not clapping!

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

I wasn't a trained actor, I was trained in musical comedy theater, and when you do that, the audience is completely part of the thing. It's like Elizabethan theater. You play the scene, and then you turn - the audience is part of it.

In comedy you feel you need to go back to the theatre every now and again, you feel you need to go back to an audience every now and again to see if you're still getting your craft right, making people laugh at the moments you think they should and that sort of thing.

I found doing that kind of comedy without an audience is just... for me, it's almost impossible. You need the audience to do their half of the work.

I actually always try to have a moment in my show where I can just lay down on stage and talk to people for a little while.

'Where's Bill going?' He's going to comedy death. Boom! He pops out of it with another joke. It's my particular style.

One of the many reasons why I love stand-up so much is when you're performing, you get instant feedback. You know if stuff is working right away.

Stand-up is live, so I'm used to being live for most of my career. It's interesting.