Mitch Hedberg Quotes

I get nervous when I don't get nervous. If I'm nervous I know I'm going to have a good show.

When you're doing a show on stage, and they show you a red light, that means you have 5 minutes left. At some clubs, they hold a candle up in the back. That's the worst method. You're up here, and then you see a floating candle. "Oh, no! This place is haunted!" I can't be funny when I'm frightened.

I lost my temper on stage.

I still get nervous about singing. I drink tea with honey and lemon before every concert. And I need to have scented candles in all of my hotel rooms.

My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

A good plate of sushi after an opening helps to soothe that post-opening blues - especially since you feel like raw meat yourself.

I tend to do yoga before I go on stage, so that keeps me nice and calm.

It's such a relief for me to sit in front of a tape recorder and not be using it to learn my lines.

The bigger the crowd the better really! The noise calms your nerves.

I was asked to act when I couldn't act. I was asked to sing 'Funny Face' when I couldn't sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn't dance - and do all kinds of things I wasn't prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

I get nervous about gigs sometimes, but not with records - I always get excited.

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be.

Since this our first show, I think they'll see us sweat a lot.

Instant gratification takes too long.

My nerves before a gig got worse; I had terrible bad nerves all the time. Once we started... I was fine.

This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

I'm nervous, but once I get a guitar on and start a song, after the first few seconds, I can feel it ease. I don't have to worry about anything other than the music.

I don't really do stand-up.

Performing on stage is such a buzz. I've done stupid things such as jump off a building, but I'd never experienced adrenalin like I did on stage.

In 'The Sound of Music,' I was a von Trapp daughter in a white dress with a blue satin sash, and my line was, 'I'm Brigitta. I'm 12, and all I want is a good time.' I got a laugh. And I was so delighted, I laughed, too. Sadly, that's a problem I still have - onstage, I laugh hysterically at how funny I am.

You do a play, or you go on set for the first day of filming: if you don't have nerves, and you don't have any kind of adrenalin pushing you forward, then something is wrong.

I don't like speaking publicly when I don't have to be funny.

If I was performing, I had no pain. But you can't stay on stage 24 hours a day.

I wake up around nine and do morning chants in my bed. I learned transcendental meditation four years ago, and I do it twice a day, plus an extra ten minutes before the show because I struggle with stage fright just before I go on.