James Burrows Quotes

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

If you play it straight it's funny - the best comedy is always played straight down the middle. The adjustment is understanding from the screenplay that a moment is hilarious.

Stand up is really fun because if I think of a joke or a funny idea, then I can just go and tell some people and if they laugh, they laugh right away.

I think comedy is one of the hardest things to pull off. You either have timing or you don't, and that's something I don't have for sure.

The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.

I was the kid who always hung back and then dropped the jokes when you least expected it. Timing was everything. My mouth sort of developed over time.

If you have the right voice and the right delivery, you're cocky enough, and you pound down on the punch line, you can say anything and make people laugh maybe three times before they realize you're not telling jokes.

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.

For comedy, timing is key.

Well, I think my stand-up is often kind of visual. Not like Carrot Top visual, but visual.

I'm really good at standup. I always win at standup.

Richard Lewis is the master at taking a joke that he's told a million times in a row in the past year, on the road, and making it look like he's pulling it out of thin air.

I know I can get laughs anywhere, in front of any crowd, if I'm given the chance.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'

The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh.

My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

Actually, I think I'm funnier off-camera.

To be really great, you need to be naturally funny in order to stand out. But you can work at it, and find the best vehicle that you have to communicate what you're saying to people.

With silly stuff, it's seventy-five percent confidence. I always tell people that it's because I'm nervous about getting that next laugh and I need to hear it. I always want to condense a joke.

I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view.

Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of ueber-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, 'Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny.'

Stand-up is hard.

Telling a joke is risk taking. Younger people are more insecure and not willing to put themselves on the line, so a quick one-liner is much safer.

If you are doing stand-up comedy, you have to be confident in what you are doing. That doesn't mean just because you are confident you are funny.