Hannibal Buress Quotes

My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, 'OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what it's like.' I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing 'Memory.' I was terrible. Terrible.

You say a line and you wait for them to laugh, then you say another line and you wait... It felt weird to me. But it's interesting and the energy is almost like theatre, I suppose, with all the people there.

She said, and I'm not kidding, 'Is this a speaking role?' I wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.

Stand-up comedy is the most relaxing thing I do. If I want to unwind and de-stress, I go out and do stand-up, often several shows in a night.

I auditioned for 'The Office,' and I don't know if it was a role I could do, but I liked the character. You do one take, and you're reading with a person who's just sitting in a chair and not really... you're not playing off someone, which is what I like to do. I like to play around and find the moment.

Doing stand-up takes the fun out of being funny.

I don't really do stand-up.

When you're a stand-up comic, you live and die by what you say on stage. There's no director or writer or producer who can tell you what to say and not to say. Once in a while, a club owner will ask a comic to work clean, or not say something, but that's few and far between.

I can't claim to ever have done stand-up.

I'll never stop doing stand-up. There's nothing better than getting in front of 2,500 people and making an entire room laugh.

When I started doing stand-up again, a lot of it was coming from an angrier place, and I quickly learned that doesn't spell a good time in a comedy club.

I never go see live comedy shows because I just sit in the audience thinking, "Here's what I would say. Here's what I would do if I got up there." It drives me crazy.

I love comedy. I like to think that there's a sense of humor in some of my music - obviously not all of it.

A comedian who starts talking to himself becomes his own audience. This is fatal.

Whether you have a show or not, you can still be somewhere being funny.

Comedy and I were never strangers, it's just that I was doing a lot of drama.

The whole thing with comedy is that you are always in control. Writer, director, actor, producer, and sometimes bouncer. And you are just a piece of their puzzle.

Doing actual comedic material is just about the most joyful endeavor ever. That's the truth. The only time it's not funny is when business gets in the way.

It's depressing sitting at a comedy club all night, waiting to get on to do your five or ten minutes of material.

For doing comedy, a sense of humor is a must!

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 never go see a comic. The only one I'd ever really want to see is Don Rickles. He might be 80 years old, but he blows everyone out of the water.

I always wanted to give people the more exciting version of what I think a comedian should be - because I didn't grow up with comics, I grew up with rock 'n' roll. And when I saw a lot of comics, no matter how good they might have been material-wise, I would get a little bored with them after 10 minutes, only because I feel comedians don't really know performance.

I love doing comedy, I really do. It was perhaps my first love. And I think, as an actor, you're young and you do school plays and the reason you go 'I might do more of this' is because you make people laugh in a school play. You don't go and do Hamlet when you're nine and go: "I feel people were really moved out there!" You do a silly voice and everyone laughs and you go: "Ooh, that feels quite nice. I might make a life out of this!"

Comedy is a noble art. And every comedian who does anything is serving a noble purpose.