Tom Hanks Quotes

The basic function of a comic is stand-up because it's so straightforward and simple. If the audience don't laugh, you didn't do your job. I've had some audiences where I didn't care if they laughed or not because they were either too drunk or stupid.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

When you're doing stand-up, you can comment if something fails, get a laugh from that.

Richard Lewis is the master at taking a joke that he's told a million times in a row in the past year, on the road, and making it look like he's pulling it out of thin air.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly.

What 'SNL' taught me that was useful on 'The Watch' was, only put in bad words if they can get a laugh - there was no need for swear words and beeps in places that weren't necessary. Those beeps should only be in there when they mean something and it's important to the joke.

Impressions are still kind of hard for me and not what I love to do the most, but with characters, I think there's an element of fearlessness. You try to figure out the best reading and wording of the jokes before the show, and then you just really have to go hard.

I think I am someone who is very interested in structure and different ways of delivering jokes.

If you look up the definition of stand-up comedy, it's funny on purpose. A little bit of pressure there. It's basically acting. You're telling stories and acting them out for people. The more you make it seem real, really a person doing it, then it seems to me the better it works.

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.

If you're not doing something or saying something in comedy, the camera is going to go somewhere else.

I don't want a chat show or to be on telly every day, as that's not my business; my business is standing in front of people and making them laugh, and I want to see how far I can get with that.

One of the funniest lines in my show was written for me by Alan Bursky. I really want to learn this routine!

Comedy is like math - you can check your answer because you know you've gotten it right if you get a laugh. It just makes sense to me. I feel like because I've had to keep that tool in my box for so long, I'm ready to show it off a bit.

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

Stand up is really fun because if I think of a joke or a funny idea, then I can just go and tell some people and if they laugh, they laugh right away.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.

And you can't hide in a comedy scene either. You have to give in to the scene and commit.