Ronny Chieng Quotes

Other kids would sneak out of the house to go to parties and do untoward things. I was sneaking out to do standup downtown. It paid off.

My father was a waiter basically, and when I got my first professional job as an actor, I left a job that he found me for half the amount of money. So anyone would think that they're stupid, that that would be a stupid move.

It's quite a dangerous career move to go wilfully on making films that may not find a distributor.

I always thought that if I got no love at all early in my standup career, or I was god awful, I thought I'd get into psychology.

To give up my job as a temp and actually make a living doing comedy, it was staggering.

I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn't turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I started out with comedy in college, but had my major in Recreation Administration - which meant I wasn't going to get a real job - so I started doing a little standup.

To do the things that I did, I'm amazed that I had the audacity - like resigning from the Army and becoming a janitor and a songwriter.

My father tried to discourage me from going into comedy, mainly because he felt like it wasn't promising. It was pie in the sky.

I just loved jokes so much as a child. I remember wanting to perform at, like... age seven by reading from a kids' joke book, and my parents being like, 'That's not what standup comedy is,' and me being like, 'Not yet it isn't! I'm going to change the game.'

I'm used to taking risks - my career was a risk. Being a stand-up comic is not something that's normally accepted when your mother is Filipino.

I always told my parents, 'Just give me till I'm 27 to do comedy, to make it'.

When I got emancipated from the foster care program and I became homeless, it was a struggle. I was working at an airline, and then I stopped to pursue comedy 110%.

I was scared of running off to be a comedian and then having to come back with my tail between my legs.

If you're going to be a good standup, or a successful standup, or a standup who can work for money, you have to eliminate the possibility of dying quickly.

I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.

Be risky at work. Be safe with your investments.

But [Everett] and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That’s what was great about them. They tried. Not many do.

Even if it doesn't work out, the experience is so valuable to so many employers that your worst case scenario is, 'Ok, so that was a bust, I'll get a six-figure job at whatever company.' Risk is this outmoded idea - your parents might not understand that, but taking these types of risks doesn't have a downside.

What I've learned over the years is that the path less traveled always makes for a more interesting journey. If you simply do what everyone else is doing, how can you ever expect to excel and create something wonderful and unique in your life?

I'm interested in doing some acting in the future, but it's a distant second to stand up.

I'm a comedian, and I decided I wanted to be a comedian when I was eight years old watching old Saturday Night Live episodes. I never decided to be a rapper because I'm not a rapper.

I don't know if there's a strategy really so much as, like I learned doing standup and had to learn fast, you always just try to give your favorite, strongest stuff as early as possible and you start with what you like the most.

It was a very big gamble. I lost my job in France, I received a job in which was extremely uncertain, how long would IBM be interested in research, but the gamble was taken and very shortly afterwards, I had this extraordinary fortune of stopping at Harvard to do a lecture and learning about the price variation in just the right way.