Jim Jefferies Quotes

For some comedians it feels so cool to be like: 'I'll say anything, man!'. I'm not quite there yet.

I'm glad that that era of stand-up is over, because I think it adversely affected a lot of people who could have been really, really great comedians. Because they unconsciously or subconsciously stifled their wild impulses, and were thinking about the five clean minutes for The Tonight Show, or the 20-minute sitcom pitch as a stand-up act.

I don't think there's hardly a comic out there that does clean material all the way around. There's a couple of guys that are clean, but I'm not one of them.

For the first six months of my stand-up career, I was talking like Danny Dyer. I was doing a lot of 'alright guvnors?' It wasn't true to who I was.

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.

I really can't describe what my stand-up is like - people see it and they say it's like that, or it's like this, and that's really up to them, that's fine, but I don't sit around all day analysing it. I just try and enjoy a show and interest myself because if I don't do that then I won't interest anybody else.

I think there is a weird loneliness that comes with being a comedian. There is something definitely inside the personality of a person who wants to be a comedian, and (he or she) is looking to connect (to the audience) at all times.

Bette Midler can say four-letter words and make you love it.

Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.

A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door - he's the person who opens a door funny.

I believe that comedians do what they do, and then they get credit or criticism for doing it. There's nothing planned about this.

As a comedian I appreciate every kind of comedy. You decide for yourself what you're going to do.

When I started out I was definitely more traditional. It was 1988. Everyone was doing the Jerry Seinfeld.

As far as standup, everybody has a vehicle they are driving. If what you do works, it's like playing golf. If you can master that one swing over and over again, you will be successful. That's what standup is. You have to have a central move and it has to be yours. You have to own your comedy, own what you do.

If you're a stand-up, you're more or less yourself.

You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.

The whole idea of comedy, there is nothing normal about going up on stage to make strangers laugh. But I'm also not an exhibitionist like other comics. I'm not up there talking about masturbating.

Becoming a comedienne was my way of adjusting to puberty.

As I go on in standup, I keep being described as cleaner and cleaner as I do each hour, they're like, 'It's unbelievable how clean,' 'He's the cleanest person in the world.' And then I'll do shows and people will be like, 'You're supposed to be so clean, but you're talking about cancer.'

I'm not a comedy writer, I'm a comedian, so I only write stuff that I would want to say.

I like to think of myself as the middleman between Fred Allen and Henny Youngman.

Comedians have a tendency to have a limited range, they tend to do one thing and do it very well, but it's limited.

I wanted to be a comedian, I wanted people to laugh at what I was saying, not to be staring at my boobs or wearing a skirt and show off my ... I just didn't think that that was the best way to get taken seriously in that world.

There's a lot of guys up there who like wearing a suit or try doing jokes that they think will play to a certain crowd, or maybe get them corporate work. I've always written jokes that I would want to hear. So, I'm trying to entertain myself more than anything.

I guess the one-liner kind of comic sounds like a guy who can talk and talk and whatever the subject is, he can pull out a one-liner, but I couldn't do that. I didn't like the association. I mean, I love Steven Wright, but so many people started saying "Steven Wright" to me, and I would get mad, because I never wanted to be thought of as copying anybody.