Brett Gelman Quotes

What most infuriates me is the cell phones. If I see someone texting during the show, I walk off the stage.

When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped.

I would never heckle someone. That's why I think I'm so interested in someone that would.

I loathe hecklers. I haven't got a good syllable to say. When you come out of the club circuit and into the concert hall, they should be gone. There's an element of manners that should tell you that the ticket is dear and it's a different venue.

I don't like going to the movies with people that talk a lot. They want to have a conversation or something.

Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.

… the scene of noise and uproar which the House of Commons now exhibits is perfectly disgusting. This used not to be the case in better, or at lease more gentlemanlike, times; no noises were permissible but the cheer and the cough, the former admitting every variety of intonation expressive of admiration, approbation, assent, denial, surprise, indignation, menace, sarcasm. Now all the musical skill of this instrument is lost and drowned in shouts, hootings, groans, noises of the most discordant that the human throat can emit, sticks and feet beating against the floor.

Don't come to wild shows if you're just going to talk to your friend about whose shoes you're wearing.

I don't want awkward shows with people looking at their phones or tweeting. That's something you should do at home.

I'm at the doctor's office. I'm in the waiting room. And there's this guy on his cell phone, talking really loud. Does he think he owns the place? Apparently. I think this is so offensive. But you have to remember: It doesn't take a cell phone to make people rude. People were rude before there were cell phones.

When I directed the 'Ring' cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York recently, there were people texting all through the show. But theatre isn't a communication device: it's a communion.

If you're in a theater, people are texting, all around you. You have the little glowing screens everywhere. Think of how annoying that can be.

There is a newly coined word in the English language for the moment when the person we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, and all of a sudden we don't exist. The word is 'pizzled': it's a combination of puzzled and pissed off.

You get on an elevator with someone, you say hi to them, you speak to them. You give respect. That's just how I've always been.

It's always nice to get a storyline - I know all actors say that, but it genuinely is, as it feels like the show's team are putting their faith in you to do it justice, so it's quite a compliment.

I spent most of my days in school being a class clown. I never shut up. By the time I was in middle school, I had myself a personal aide.

I don't mind it. My friends think it's kind of rude of the people to come up to me and treat me like an object.

Never fight with or disrespect your partner in front of other people.

Whatever happened to courtesy? What can be so urgent that you have to look down at your phone in the middle of a dinner conversation with people who matter to you? You can't wait five minutes before staring at your phone?

The idea of MPs texting and emailing through debates makes my gorge rise, as it does when a minicab driver makes phone calls at the wheel. I'm not paying you to keep in touch with your mates!

Treat haters in your online spaces just the same as you would in the real world. If they're not respectful to you and your customers, kick them out.

I always try to be nice. I never want to be that person that anyone perceives as being rude or disrespectful, 'cause that's not me at all.

I was a kitchen porter for an hour at the Bank of England when I was 18. In the cafe, someone clicked their fingers and shouted, 'Boy, come and clear my table.' I walked out.

People being incredibly rude and playing music incredibly badly and being incredibly obnoxious has always been a teenage sort of thing.

Good. If you checked your e-mail every five minutes, or keep texting and Tweeting in the middle of our conversation, I might snap your neck out of sheer principle.