Jim Jefferies Quotes

I remember I used to go to The Laugh Factory and just goof off onstage, and then I'd see Dane Cook. He did a bit about his Mom making the bed in the summertime when he was a kid. He just said "Vroom!" and threw the sheet up in the air and the sheet would just stay over the bed for like a minute and a half. All he had were his arms out, but I could see the sheet. And he didn't do anything. He just kept it there. And I went, "I have to write more."

[Stand-up] might be ballsy, but I'd rather not be an actor. Actors are tools.

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.

When you're doing standup you're kind of doing, "Hey. I thought of this. This may be funny.

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

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

I've been doing stand-up since '89.

I will always do stand-up, even if my acting career takes off. Stand-up is my life.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

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.

I got into stand-up because I love stand-up. Specifically in stand-up, I love jokes. I love short, structured ideas and a punch line.

I just realized at a certain point that no matter how much writing I did, I'm still a gym rat for comedy clubs.

I don't think acting's difficult. It's not like learning to walk on your hands.

Stand-up is cool. In stand-up, you get to learn about yourself if you do it from a thoughtful place.

I don't write anything. It's all done onstage, which is why I always tell younger comics that they just have to go do it. You have to get up, talk, and take a thought or a word and just expound, and you find it in there. I don't sit down and write.

I have a very high respect for professional comedians. What they do astonishes me. You have to be really smart and absorb everything, repackage it, bring it back to the person, and make them laugh at themselves. I can make people laugh during my talks because they didn't come to have me make them laugh. It's added value. So my job is way easier than that of a professional comic.

One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.

Comedy's easy for me now - it's all about timing and the way you deliver lines. I use facial expressions to get the point across.

Stand-up is an amazing art form, I think, because it's all about you having complete control of the situation, but absolutely none.

The first time I got on stage I was 10 years old and I did impressions. I did cartoon characters and I really got the bug for this life when I saw that people were laughing and saw the attention I was getting.

Being onstage and performing, the high of that, and people coming to see you, and getting to make them laugh - that's what gets me hyped up. It's a nervous excitement.

I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it.

When I'm doing stand-up, it's just me depending on me. I know how to go out there and make people laugh. I've been doing it since I was a teenager. I trust my instincts. I just go out and talk. A lot of the time I let the material come from the top of my head.

When I do any stand-up, you're the writer, director, and producer. You're alone.