comedy profession Quotes

I've always been funny, but I never considered it as a particular career path until my early 30s, when I realized that hip-hop wasn't going to be the long term.

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

Comedy is the only profession where love from a stranger is better than love from a family member. You need to perform for strangers to see if you're really funny. If they laugh and cheer, it's the greatest thing in the world.

A comedian is sort of like a wild animal. It really just depends on where you catch them. Sometimes they want to cuddle up, and sometimes they'll snap at you. But for me, more often than not, if I'm talking to somebody who makes their living in comedy, it'll be a very thoughtful conversation driven from an emotionally honest place.

If I can make a teacher's salary doing comedy, I think that's better than being a teacher.

But it's true, I was a sports organiser at Pontins - one of a series of terrible jobs I had before I started doing comedy full time.

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

As a comedian, frankly, I don't care that much about bad jokes.

I'm a stand-up comic. Anything else I do besides that is a plus, but stand-up comedy is what I do, it's what I've been doing and it's what I'm going to keep doing.

I'm funny. I'm a comedian. I'm not a clown.

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

I do feel good doing them [family-friendly movies], but it's not going to be my way of life. I'm a comedian.

We mustn't complain too much of being comedians - it's an honorable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed - that's all. We are bad comedians, we aren't bad men.

When I started, you didn't make a lot of money by being a comedian. You didn't get a lot of respect.

Occasionally, a finger comes up to wipe a tear [of laughter] from the eye... and that's my reward... the rest goes to the government.

I always assumed that at some point I would have to quit making jokes, get a real job and do something meaningful and productive that would actually benefit society. Fortunately this never happened.

You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job.

I'm always doing comedy and will never hit up a 9-to-5 desk job.

Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.

Karaoke isn't fair when you're a comedian. The whole idea is to get people laughing and enjoying themselves, and I'm a professional funny guy.

As an entertainer, a comedy guy, whatever, you're never gonna be truly 100-percent happy with anything.

Probably one of the reasons I became a comedian is that you get a chance to control when people laugh at you.

I don't enjoy writing newspaper articles any more than people like reading them. I'm a standup comic, not a journalist, although sometimes onstage I will say: 'What else is in the news?' Writing is work, which I'm not comfortable with.

The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers.

I have a tendency toward the pleasures of the flesh. It's a battle for me, as far as weight and things like that. But I'm curbing them because I want to continue to do comedy, and the two don't mix. So I try to fight those demons.