Todd Barry Quotes

I started out in stand-up when I was 18, which is really masochistic, and I did it really till I started going in movies. I did it for about three years out in LA.

I first did stand-up when I was 17, and then I passed out fliers for a comedy club (in New York City) and I got onstage whenever I could. And musical theater went out the window as soon as I started doing stand-up.

From 1987 to 1992, I was on the road for 40 weeks a year playing comedy clubs, and that was during the 'comedy boom.'

I've played every comedy club and every theatre across the country for the last 25 years and seen a lot of audience members from different ethnic persuasions.

When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.

When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.

I don't think I'm ever going to retire from stand-up, but what I have retired from is working the road every week.

I started once a week in North Carolina at a pub called Charlie Goodnight and met a lot of comics there. Then I moved to L.A., and if you're not known, it's hard to get stage time. So you start out doing what they call 'bringers' - you have to bring five people if you wanna get on stage. It was a lot of hustle, a learning curve.

Somewhat naively, I entered the BBC's 'New Talent Competition,' believing it was for people who had never tried comedy before. I remember sitting in the dressing room before the show and hearing the other acts - who all knew one another - talking to Rhod Gilbert about how he must be about ready to go 'full-time' as a comic.

See, I'm totally fearless. I got my chops in the most, like, dangerous comedy atmosphere. If you can make it in New York, you can really do stand-up anywhere.

When you're a comic, it's like being born gay. It's what you want to do every night when your other friends are out at night going to parties.

I call myself a comic.But I started as an actress. I did plays since I was 5.

I'm not very funny in real life. I used to want to be a comedian when I was 13, 14, 15, till I saw "Death Of A Salesman" with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.

Not all comedy clubs or situations are ideal, especially when you're first coming up and I think that's good for you. Eventually you get to express your real personality.

I always knew I wanted to do comedy. I like making people laugh. I started out young just making my family laugh and trying to make kids laugh in school and getting into plays. I think it's the only thing I know how to do so hopefully it works out.

I've been trying to bust into the comedy business my whole life. It's hard in Hollywood to do different things. I know this. It's a struggle.

Everyone who wants to make it in comedy goes to L.A., so a million comedians fight for time on three stages. If you get in there in New York, you're working eight times a night sometimes. Who's going to be funny, the guy who works once a week, or the guy working eight times a night?

If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home.

I'm doing a lot of stand-up, but not like when you're living in New York and you can do three sets a night and it's your life, and you sleep all day and you wake up and you eat with a bunch of other comics and then get ready for the night.

I never really considered acting as a career until I moved to New York.

I've been a comedian since I was fourteen. But I've never really been a CEO.

I spent 25 years as a stand-up comedian.

I started in the club route. I did the alternative scene later on. When I lived in New York, I did the Luna Lounge and stuff, where Janeane Garofalo and David Cross and all those guys worked out of, but I came from a comedy club background. I'm proud of that background. I'm one of the people that really crossed over and did both.

I always wanted to be a comedian, but I wasn't sure how you do that.

It used to be if you wanted to be a comedian, you used to just do sets. You'd go up three times a night, just get better, and then some people would see you and you'd do 'The Tonight Show,' and then boom, you're a comedian.