Josh Gondelman Quotes

Comedy is really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title.

Some people use stand-up to get something else in their careers, but it's truly the art form of stand-up I love.

I was part of a group called Casanova Fly, doing bouncer work, attending college and working in a pizza shop when I first met producer Sylvia Robinson who came into the pizza shop where I was flipping the dough. I was rapping in the park in Englewood, and she heard about what I was doing.

I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.

I made the first sandwich before entering college.

You know, I never knew if I had any talent when I started in this business. My first job was being a page at The Tonight Show. I saw Jack Paar come out one night and sit on the edge of his desk and talk about what he'd done the night before. I thought, 'I can do that!' I used to do that on a street corner in the Bronx with all my buddies.

I like to write, I like to do stand-up, I like to act.

When I went to college, my goal was to be a college history teacher. I majored in history.

I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.

I always was a writer, but then I wanted to do stand-up because I thought that was a way that I could perform what I wrote.

My humor is channeling everything through my brain. For example, when I talk about something, it's how Richard Lewis feels about it. I'm a storyteller. I do a lot of free association.

My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh.

In college, I wrote maybe three short stories.

You can't just expect anyone to turn comedian because it's something that should come naturally, but not when forced on someone.

I didn't get into comedy to be loved by everybody.

I really believe that comedy is an incredible tool, and you can use it in many ways.

I was just a young kid from Parma, Ohio, and I went to college at Miami University of Ohio.

The thing about stand-up was, not only was I getting to write it without anybody saying I couldn't do it, but I got to perform it. It just kind of became therapy for me. I had just gotten through a break-up and I was talking about it a lot.

I knew I just loved comedy, and I think it was my parents who initially brought up the notion of me trying to do stand-up. I think I actually tried writing jokes just at home, just kind of sitting around. But it seemed like a very real way to step into the world of comedy.

There's nothing worse than being an aging young person.

I think when I feel I'm at my best is when I'm on stage, and it's my version of jazz because it's just riffing or something.

The price of a college education should never include a 1 in 5 chance of being sexually assaulted.

There’s nothing more humbling than seeing your best quotes in a list, and thinking they could have been written by a coma patient with a keyboard and spasms.

I love writing stand-up so much and tinkering and looking for ideas.

I think when people talk about improvising it turns into this silly thing like, "Oh there's like a hula hoop there and I'm like 'Oh what's going on here? Is this a really big ring?'"