Dick Cavett Quotes

I spent 25 years as a stand-up comedian.

I'd been doing standup since college.

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

After I got my first laugh on stage, I was hooked.

You know, my first album, some of those jokes I'd done for twelve years because I couldn't throw 'em out.

I was always just like, 'Standups are making it up.' A lot of people have that myth about standup. And so it wasn't until I was in college for theater school in Boston that I realized I can actually start going to open mics and figuring this out.

It's a young man's game - standup comedy.

When I was in third grade I taught myself ventriloquism... What's hard is to learn to be an entertainer and make people laugh. I was a few years out of college before I felt I had enough material. Then in 1988 I moved to L.A. and started to do some shows at comedy clubs.

There really is no Johnny Carson anymore. There is no one place a comedian can appear and explode.

I started doing stand up when I was 19. Because I was underage at the time, at certain clubs I would be forced to wait outside until it was my time to go on stage. Then I would do my set, walk off, and be kicked out again.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

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

I've been doing stand-up since '89.

You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24.

To get a job where the only thing you have to do in your career is to make people laugh-well, it's the best job in the world.

I will always do stand-up, even if my acting career takes off. Stand-up is my life.

I had fun doing a lot of low-budget movies and web series. And I got back into stand-up where I started.

Unlike a lot of comics, I didn't care about getting on 'Saturday Night Live.' That show had such history and was so established that I didn't see the point.

I never wanted to be road comic.

Comedy is an amazing calling. Once you get that first laugh, it's hard to turn away. Then, of course, you're hooked and you have to learn how to survive in the business.

I'm a frustrated stand-up comic. If you hand me a microphone and I get one laugh, then I'll go on for 20 minutes.

At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.

People see me on the 'Daily Show' or 'About a Boy'. But the reality is that I only got into this business to do standup comedy.

When I got a part in 'All American Girl,' in 1994, I remember thinking, 'Now I have a series, I'm not going to need to do standup,' but every night I'd go out afterward and get onstage somewhere.

As a comedian, I'm forced to have a tough skin. Until people laugh, they are detractors. You walk into a new audience where nobody knows you, they go: 'Make us laugh. Show us what you're made of. Prove why we should be listening to you.'