Brandon T. Jackson Quotes

I'm proud to say that I've never had a normal job. I started doing stand-up when I was in high school, purely as a measure to never get a proper job.

In my early 20s I was so miserable doing construction, I wanted something that paid money. I liked nice stuff. I liked cars and architecture, and things that cost money. I wanted to not swing a hammer, and make money... and not do stuff that was dirty. I attempted to get into comedy. I started to do stand-up, but I wasn't very good at it.

I worked as a comedian for 23 years, 51 weeks a year.

I'm so lucky that I found comedy and that I get to do it for a living.

I loved stand-up, but I never thought you could do it as a job.

I liked horror and comedy, basically, from a young age, but I just ended up getting into comedy because there was - I could do stand-up comedy, and that was my way into this business, and then there was no stand-up horror, and I didn't know how to get into that world.

I've always got the road. Stand-up makes you so autonomous and self-sufficient that it really helps with that part of show business.

At around 19 I realized that I really didn't have any skills other than making people laugh, so I should probably pursue it full-time.

Stand-up is a real art form in itself and one that I really think to be good at you have to devote your entire life to. It's the really, really good ones that end up getting to do the things that I like to do: movies, TV shows, and stuff like that. It's a really hard gig and it just never called to me.

I did not go into comedy to escape anything. I went into comedy because I had parents who thought it was a reputable way to earn a living.

I've built a comedy brand for myself that is, one, really satisfying and fulfilling personally and, two, has been able to cultivate this young female audience that's hungry for knowledge, information, and entertainment.

I'm set up where I make a lot of money doing stand-up, and it's easy.

I never became a road comic.

There was never anything else I wanted to pursue. It was always theater, and movies are a fairly new thing.

I think I probably would have gone into stand-up.

I'll be doing stand-up for the rest of my life. The opportunities that it grants you can't be denied. Stand-up is both the hardest thing I do and the thing I enjoy most.

Like, the idea that I had to spend the rest of my life behind a desk and not be able to express myself the way I wanted to express myself. To me, that is torture. I mean if people out there that do love that then more love to them, but it just wasn't for me.

I don't know that I'd be a comedian if I stayed in Canada.

I started comedy in 2006. I didn't even think it was a thing I could do.

I probably wouldn't be doing comedy, if it wasn't for the fact that I was doing stand-up and getting a few gigs, while I was also applying for law internships and getting absolutely nothing.

I have always been a comedian - that has always been my job and it is what I want to do for a long time to come.

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.

As a stand-up comic, you have to do the road.

From the very beginning I knew I had to be a comedian, and thus preferred being one.

Like everybody, I started out doing 'bringer' shows - the kind where if you show up with a certain number of people, you get to perform. Sometimes I would actually pay strangers off the street to come in and see my set.