Ari Shaffir Quotes

If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?

I'm not a natural performer: I have a natural stage fright.

When you go on a stage, before you go on a stage you're really scared and you're really frightened. You don't know what to do. "Why did I say yes to this?" But once you're on the stage you think, "Okay."

I always feel like if someone has stage fright, I really try and say, "Listen, these people want you to succeed, they want to have a good evening. They want to see something really great. They don't want to see something crappy. They don't. They want to be at something really special."

I used to be afraid of looking at the audience.

People think I look odd onstage. But the way I deal with being incredibly nervous is by concentrating really hard.

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed.

Actually, I failed drama in high school because of nerves. I wasn't able to memorize the words. I had complete stage fright.

You could put me on a stage in front of 100 people, and I could do a tap dance, but one-on-one was really difficult for me. And it took me most of my life to learn how to work with that anxiety, to embrace and be comfortable with it.

I'm so scared of doing theater. I've got stage fright, although they keep asking me to come back.

You can be afraid in a press conference, nervous, sweaty, but you can't be afraid when you do your work because it doesn't work that way.

Many people associate stage fright with a fear of looking ridiculous, making a bad impression. For me, it's like a kind of fever.

I don't get any anxiety. I don't because of two reasons. Number one, just breaking through it as a kid and finally getting past it was like okay, nothing's ever going to feel that scary again as that deafening silence of a joke not working. Any joke not working is not as bad as not being able to even try and get on stage.

I think everyone's afraid of public speaking. There have been times where I've come out of my own show and been like, 'Oh, God, what am I doing?' . . . You have to remind yourself that 'OK, I'm kind of a badass. I can handle it.'

The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn't know what all the yelling was about. I didn't realize that my body was moving. It's a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, "What'd I do? What'd I do?" And he said, "Whatever it is, go back and do it again."

I get nervous every time, for every single performance, before getting up on that stage.

And when I perform on my own tour, I have to talk myself into going out on that stage every single night.

As for the stage fright, it never goes away. When I'm waiting in the wings to go on, it's agony every single time but I stay focused and I know that once I'm on stage it'll be fine; I'll be in my happy little bubble.

I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.

I am absolutely not a roll-on-stage kind of girl! I would be totally freaked out if I didn't warm up, and I don't know how other singers do it.

I don't feel nervous or fearful when I'm on stage.

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

An 'OMG' of mine would probably be speaking on stage and performing in front of thousands of people!

Carly Simon abandoned the stage for seven years after collapsing from nerves before a concert in Pittsburgh in 1981. When she resumed performing, she would sometimes ask members of her band to spank her before she went onstage, to distract her from her anxiety.

Stage fright is my worst problem.