Zach Galifianakis Quotes

Touring is really a pretty lonely business.

I've gotten very cynical and kind of anhedonic about all the things I have to do to get to do comedy: all the travel, hotels, and airports.

I know I'm really lucky to do what I do, but sometimes with the hours and the travelling, I don't get to see my family and friends as much as I'd like. It can be lonely on the road. Sometimes I come offstage after a massive adrenaline rush, and then when I go to an empty hotel room on my own, it can be an anti-climax.

I've done the big 12-city tours, and I'm never going to do that again - never. I was younger then. It wears you out, you know.

As awesome as it is to be with a big act and get three catered meals a day and get a dressing room with an actual shower in it, it's hard sometimes as a new artist to come across in 25 minutes. You get 25 minutes to hopefully impress these people. I think the longer set is more suitable for us and gives us an opportunity to connect better.

I've talked to some drummers who seem to have a very hard time staying in shape on the road, including some drummers touring with high-profile acts that don't have to live on fast food every night.

The thing people don't understand is that touring or travelling or whatever you do in my position means you go to all these cool places all over the world, but you see everything from a car window. You don't get to see much of the city or meet people at all.

I've probably gone a month or two without playing guitar, just because I've gotten so burnt on it touring all year or whatever.

Whereas for me, touring tends to be a very strange and isolating experience.

Touring is an incredibly isolated situation. I don't know how people tour for years on end. You find a lot of people who can't stop touring, and it's because they don't know how to come back into life. It's sort of unreal.

I toured for 13 years, and it was very lonely, and it was hard work.

Acting can be very solitary, even if you're in a scene with someone else, because you worry about your own performance and if you look good.

Headlining can be sort of solitary - you're sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.

I get so antsy. When you're working, you're like, 'Oh my God, I'm so tired.' And then a hiatus starts, and you're off for three days, and you don't know what to do with yourself. You're never gonna have another job in your life, and you suck at acting. Your world comes tumbling down pretty quickly.

Not playing off of an audience is very challenging.

The only way I'm going to support my family is to tour. I love playing, don't get me wrong. That 90 minutes every night, that's free. We get paid to travel. But every night, I have to get myself locked in. There are a thousand people that don't want to be disappointed, because they have a lot of expectations.

Stand-up comedy is a really lonely profession: you 'perform for 2000 people, then you go to a hotel room by yourself and stare at a wall.

When you're on tour, you really don't get to hang out with and spend the holidays with your family and friends. And there isn't usually much of a break in between performance dates.

I panic when we're on tour and feel the world can leave you behind. When we finish touring, I feel like I'm running to catch up and find out what's been happening.

When you record and tour year after year without a break, it starts to feel like you're on an assembly line.

When I wasn't touring I'd be really down, then suddenly after a few weeks of crazy travelling - America, a double headline with Ray Davies in Denmark, TV shows here and just partying... Suddenly I had an acute psychotic breakdown.

We tour, we do the distance from friends and family, not really knowing how to connect with people on the same level. I've understood now, as much as we tour, we live day-to-day, so our lives are much different than the people who stay at home and go home every night.

Touring is real demanding. You swing between sadness and euphoria. But for us to cry about it isn't fair.

My calendar was empty. Touring the way we did and having a schedule like we did institutionalizes you in a way where you don't know anything else. I think I went through the darkest depression I've ever felt in my life.

Everyone traveling alone is just on their phones the whole time.