Aisha Tyler Quotes

You're always on duty because you're in a constant state of observation. That's one of the challenges of being a comedian. I think one of the other challenges is that, whether we like it or not, it's a profession that requires failure. It doesn't just encourage failure. It requires it because it's all trial and error. You need to know what doesn't work to know what works.

If you haven't truly died a million times as a comic you haven't gigged enough!

When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.

Usually, if I think something is really funny, I'm not gonna test it. I'll just test it when I'm onstage.

The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.

I would love to do comedy, but you have to be phenomenally good. I'm not sure I'm there yet. I can imagine it being so much fun but I don't think I've quite got the gall to go ahead just yet.

I've bombed on stage millions and millions of times. And that's part of it. You go up with a half-baked idea, and you bomb, and so what? Nothing bad happens if you bomb.

I bombed so much as a standup that messing up doesn't matter to me anymore. I kind of enjoy bombing sometimes - I try and make everybody hate me more. Like, once I know it's not going well, I can just have fun.

I thought that I was going to be a stand-up comedian or an actress. Turns out, I can't act my way out of a paper bag and stand-up comedy is a lot harder than it appears.

You gotta have the balls to go out there and be funny, man.

Stand-up, I find it really difficult. It's not really my thing.

You can't be afraid to fail. It's the only way you succeed - you're not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

I graduated from Second City Los Angeles. It helped me tremendously, not only in my roles in films but in helping shape me into a writer as well. In improv, you will fail sometimes, so it teaches you to be brave and try anything. The worst that can happen is nobody laughs.

There's something about being a comedian that means you have to not be scared of failing because failing is part of the process.

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

But if applause throws off your timing, then you're not the kind of comedian I would like to see. All you have to do is stand there and take it.

Comedy was my sport. It taught me how to roll with the punches. Failure is the exact same as success when it comes to comedy because it just keeps coming. It never stops.

Comedy is incredibly hard. You have to be loose. You have to be not afraid to fail.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

To be successful at anything, you need the right to fail, not just occasionally.

Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.

Don't be frightened of failure. It makes you stronger if you learn from your mistakes.

Being a pathfinder is to be willing to risk failure and still go on.

I'm going to be Dog, and I'm going to be an entertainer. And I'm going to make mistakes.

There is never hesitation about doing stand-up. It's just me doing my thing.