Garry Shandling Quotes

I've never really considered doing stand up, but I have done readings/spoken word things fairly often in which I'll just tell a bunch of stories and run off at the mouth. I'm a big tangent person.

I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress, so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up.

I'd like to explore the more abstract side of people's minds, as opposed to the usual sitcom stuff. I don't want to do the typical sitcom-type humor. I'd want to do stuff like go bowling with pineapples.

I don't necessarily have a traditional stand-up set.

I can't do jokes. I've always come from left field and tried to subvert conventional comedy. I started as a rebellion against that - albeit a very soft and surreal rebellion. It's escapist.

Here's my take on Andy Kaufman... For Kaufman, comedy was a skill that was open for examination. He didn't just do comedy, he deconstructed it like it was a transistor set. He pulled out all the wires and switched them around, often in front of our very eyes.

In my first stand-up acts there wasn't material even. You know, I'd go on stage and cry and read a Dear John letter or gut fish on stage. I could be odd - and it's what interested me as a comedian.

Is it spoken word? Kinda, but that's a weird area. Is it comedy? Well, it's funny but no, it's not comedy.

Some people use stand-up to get something else in their careers, but it's truly the art form of stand-up I love.

I really loved Andy Kaufman growing up, like every comedy person does. I like when sometimes the audience isn't quite sure what's supposed to be happening right then and that sort of unsafe feeling, as long as you're not punishing them.

I still do standup.

Stand-up is the only thing in which you actually write it, act it and direct it simultaneously, so it's actually a great theater exercise.

My writing partner, Nicki, and I became obsessed with a monologist who performs unscripted shows equipped with nothing more than scribbled bullet points and a glass of water. We wrote him a fan letter and found ourselves sharing lunch and eventually a friendship.

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

I'm a storyteller. I'm not like any other comic. I tell detailed stories - not made-up stuff, but true stories.

If you do a sketch, that's a very short narrative. Stand-up, it's bit-to-bit, minute-long narratives.

I started doing standup when I was in college, and I would incorporate a lot of characters into my act.

If I'm not clear with the character, I can't do anything with it. But once I get that character, the possibilities are endless. When you have such a defined character, I feel like I can actually read the phone book and make it funny.

A storyteller is basically what actors and writers are.

I'm the man who sits behind a table and tells true stories from his life. I'm also an actor. I was trained as an actor at Emerson College, and I use that training to play myself.

Stand-up is what I am; stand-up is what made me.

Do you think I am standing here, making this up as I go? I am sorry to disillusion you. I am not Robin Williams. I am the king of the pen.

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part.

When I was doing standup, I always wanted to get out of the standup world and take it back into the theatrical world, like with 'No Cure For Cancer.'

I always want to go back and do stand-up; I like the freedom.