T. J. Miller Quotes

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.

No one set that I ever do is the same. I mean, if I go to a comedy club, and I perform three sets, all three sets are different because anything can happen in between sets.

A lot of my best stuff is just ad libs on stage, and that's one thing that I've gotten back to at the live show.

I think you're a better comedian when you're in the moment and you're kind of reacting to what's happening like a real person instead of doing rote memorization.

But the worst feeling as a crowd work practitioner is that not only is crowd work, for me, the most fun thing to do on stage - I always say the less written jokes I tell in a set the more fun I was having--but it's also a secret weapon.

Stand-up is an amazing art form, I think, because it's all about you having complete control of the situation, but absolutely none.

In stand-up you can go either way. It's live. Somebody might say something in the crowd, you might respond to it. But in a movie you could be spontaneous too. But you pretty much have to stick to that story or that scene or that script, but in stand-up you can go wherever you want to. It's more freedom.

When you're doing comedy on stage, it's great because you have the audience there and they're like another actor in the scene. You feed off of them, laugh. But in film when everyone's quiet, it's all about timing. But the key to that is to be authentic. Be in the moment, and if you play the moment truthfully, the humor will be there.

I love writing stand-up so much and tinkering and looking for ideas.

Most of my comedy writing happens through improvisation on stage; doing it in the moment.

Stand-up, I find it really difficult. It's not really my thing.

Stand-up is live, so I'm used to being live for most of my career. It's interesting.

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

I'm in a sketch comedy group in school and I also do stand-up.

I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

Stand-up will always come first. I've been doing it for 22 years, and nothing compares to that connection you have with the audience. It's euphoric.

Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can't write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have to entertain myself.

Stand-up is kind of like my home base, and doing stand-up in New York is what I like doing most.

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room, you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything.

I've been thinking of humorous things since I was... I can't remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

I used to write jokes with friends. We'd pick a topic and then think out loud, brainstorm.

I love, love, love to rehearse, but when you're rehearsing and then you go do it at night, it's a very weird thing, because you're incorporating all these new things.

I love standing at a microphone and making a room of people laugh. That's the part of the work I love; everything else is extraneous.

Honestly, I think we in the WWE are very underrated as performers. What we do would be very difficult for even an experienced actor. To go out and sometimes have 15 minutes of verbiage, sometimes have to ad-lib and then, of course, have other variables such as the interaction with the audience, it can be challenging.