Comedy Struggles Quotes

I've gotten very cynical and kind of anhedonic about all the things I have to do to get to do comedy: all the travel, hotels, and airports.

Stand up comedy can be a tough world to break into. It can take years of painful soul searching, disappointing performances, and pounding the pavement day in and day out with very little reward.

I don't have any horror stories of trying to start as a comedian and eating it constantly on stage.

I think one of the hardest things to talk about as a comic is having money because it's so unrelatable.

I can't tell a joke to save my soul. It's just not my thing, though I love to listen to jokes.

I never approach comedy thinking 'I know it all.' Comedy is tough. To make people laugh is not easy.

I took a Groundlings class in my 20s, and I was terrible. They didn't even pass me to the next level.

I've been trying to get into comedy for years. I had a meeting with one of the networks a couple years ago, a general meeting, and when they asked what I was looking for and I told them I'd prefer to do comedy, it was as if I had two heads.

Stand-up is like a row boat: it's fun and romantic when you're choosing to do it. But if you have no other choice than to be in a row boat it's not as enjoyable; that's survival.

I've had plenty of friends tell me that their first time doing stand-up, they do well, and then they tank for a while after that. Kind of like the first time you do a drug, you're like, "Huh! This is pretty darn good," and then you spend all your money trying to get the same high.

There's no reason to be doing comedy during the day in a hot tent. I don't know why anyone thinks it's a good idea, but festival after festival keeps doing it. I did see some of the other comedians struggling.

Comedy's the only job I say where you wake up and you're like 'Can't do it!'

Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences.

Personally - and I don't mean to brag - my jokes have been falling flat for most of my life.

When you start out, it sometimes feels like you're fighting audiences every night just to prove that you're funny.

I definitely script things out. I definitely write things down and try to write jokes. Often, they're terrible. I often write terrible, terrible jokes.

I think I'm too cynical for L.A. My sense of humor doesn't go down well here, which probably affects my love life. I need to have a laugh track following me around so people know I'm trying to be funny.

Nobody knows the life of the working comic.

Nobody mountain bikes anymore - or ever did - in comedy, so I have to go by myself.

Coming up through the ranks of any calling can be rough, but that battered soul who survives the early years of courting the comic muse comes close to knowing what only the soldier knows: What combat is like.

I always thought when I was doing more melodramatic stuff like Everwood that the directors were constantly reeling me in and stopping me from being funny. I've always tried to find a funny angle on things, and 99 percent of the time, it just doesn't work.

Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don't know any jokes to tell. And when I do they're really flat and don't work.

I've done stand-up at airport Holiday Inns and that's where you feel like you're doing comedy for people that hate it.

I was never really comfortable doing comedy. Though it was good the first couple of years, there were problems, and it became a stifling experience. I was happy it ended.

Prior to the 'Chappelle's Show,' you know, no one would even listen to me, in the frame of, 'Oh, he is trying to be funny.'