Deirdre O'Kane Quotes

I don't have to worry about writing jokes. I just tell stories about things that have happened to me. As long as I'm alive and I'm living and I'm experiencing different things every day, the show will always change.

I never dreamed that the little ditties I wrote about annoying customers or bagel recipes would turn into a full-length musical comedy. But a very wise person told me to 'write what you know'. So I did.

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

I always write from a personal place - whether it be about my friends or myself or a story that I heard.

I'm a songwriter, and people will tell you the greatest stories about their lives, whether you want to hear it or not.

In fifth grade, we had to write a story and read it in front of the class. When I read mine out, the class were just belly laughing. And I remember being like, 'This is the coolest!' So I want to dedicate my life to trying to make people laugh. I can't imagine doing anything else.

I wanted to write stories I wanted to read, that I and my friends related to.

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

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

The truth is, for however much my stories come out of things that have happened to me, they're not darkly or as deeply personal as someone like Marc Maron or a lot of comedians, but they are essentially my life and my interpretation of it.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

Don't imitate. Write what you know about, that has to be your goal.

My act is pretty much me reflecting on what I want to talk about and what I think is funny and what has happened to me.

Every writer is going to end up drawing from their own experiences in one way or another.

Naturally, I mine my girlfriends' lives for good anecdotes and stories - so many of their experiences find their way into my books.

I always tell people, I never get writer's block because it's coming straight from my brain, like, real-life experiences. I'm like the news. I'm just reporting it for myself.

So much of what I write in fiction is based on true stories.

I'm certainly no Bruce Springsteen in terms of being a storyteller, but I'm trying to get a better handle on it and not always go after it from an autobiographical standpoint.

I'm just singing about my own life. Singing about all the little stories in my life and the things I've been through.

I wasn't a class clown, I just found at an early age that I was able to make people laugh. So I mostly wrote funny stuff instead of writing what I was supposed to be writing.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

Stand-up is my foundation. That's where it started at. And I love it because it's personal. It's mine. It's all me. It's my experience in life.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

I prefer writing originals.