Carlos Mencia Quotes

I wasn't funny as a kid. I remember enjoying comedians, but I never understood it was a job choice or a profession.

[Adoption] could turn you into an exquisite comedian. Ask Richard Pryor's ghost.

I think comedy is difficult, and I'm amazed so many people want to do it. I'll be buying jeans and somebody will say, "I'm a comedian" - the guy selling you the jeans. The desire to be a comedian is weird. I found it weird myself to want to be one; I was a schoolboy when I wanted to be one but I didn't know how to do it. That was 50 years ago, so times have changed greatly. There seems to be a long line of people desperate to do it and most of them are quite good.

It's funny how you get a bit older and become more accepting of things. When you're in your twenties, you're skeptical of everything. I definitely felt like that.

You try various things when you're growing up. I was an attache in the Foreign Service for a while and then I drove a bulldozer, but neither of those panned out for me so it had to be stand-up.

I got into comedy so I could stay out all night.

Obviously those who burn to be professional jesters mean that they want to be successful comedians. And those are always an elite, microscopic portion of the population. But oh, how they try.

It's funny, because when I was in college, all my professors said, 'You should do comedy.' And I was like, 'No! No!' But I was able to get my foot in the door through comedy. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to do it.

I went to school with Steven Wright, who was the shyest guy I knew, and one day someone suddenly told me that he was in a club doing standup comedy. I went down to his club and he was great. Another friend of mine, who was pretty much a thief by trade, was hosting the show. So I thought, 'If these guys can do it, then so can I.'

My humor had changed from foolishness to making sense.

I was always funny, but I wasn't a great musician, and I wanted to be a musician way more than I wanted to be a comic. I just didn't think comedians were cool when I was a kid.

I wasn't particularly funny in high school, but I grew up with three older brothers who were quite funny.

For my first gig, I got $75. I could make money being funny, so I pursued it as a career and have turned it into a lucrative business.

I was pretty much grown-up by the time I attended school in Britain - or as grown-up as I'll ever get.

Being funny was something I was doing before I understood what that even was. Now I'm making a career out of it.

My dream of course, as a writer and a person who's an entertainer, is: Grow up to be Mindy Kaling, don't grow up to be Mindy Lahiri.

This is a dream come true. HBO is the highest echelon in the world for a stand-up comedian to attain. Throughout my career I've trusted my instincts to lead me down the right path, and I am honored to work together with this network while contributing to the legacy that is HBO.

I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.

[Making people laugh] was a secret dream I kept and I didn't tell anybody about it until I was about 18.

It was a dangerous profession I had chosen ... because no one likes a funny kid. In fact, adults are scared silly of them and tend to warn children who act out that they are going to wind up in prison or worse. It is only when you grow up that they pay you vast sums of money to make them laugh.

I do love standup. I love comedians. They're my community. Also, because I know so many of them, I know the value of them. I know what they can do.

I got into comedy because I wanted to get into writing.

All that the comedian has to show for his years of work and aggravation is the echo of forgotten laughter.

I like to read, but otherwise I'm just your average, self-obsessed comedian. It's pretty much all I think about.

I was not one of those people who wanted to be a comedian when I was growing up. I liked comedy, but didn't know it was something you could do for a living. I actually wanted to be an attorney. I did do things on the side like improv and sketch comedy, but law was my focus. I was a very bookish, academic kid. When I got out of college, I was really unhappy. I had a great job that I should have loved, yet I was miserable. I slowly realized that was because I wasn't performing. So I just tried stand-up and fell in love with it after one performance.