Billy Crystal Quotes

I don't work with a lot of preparation. I think very well on my feet, and I'm very good when the pressure is on.

You have to be on your game with a live audience because anything can change.

You must have a twinkle in your eye, a naughtiness - and the audience must realize your mind is working faster than your words.

I think it's one of those things about live performance - anything goes, anything can happen, and you have to just be ready and able to roll with the punches.

Also I can come up with new bits - people yell stuff out and it's a new subject or a subject that I've been thinking about that I haven't done onstage yet and I'll just run with it.

When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.

There are jokes I know I want to tell, and there's sort of a rough order, but usually I try to change it up every show, to improvise and talk with the audience. I think when you tell jokes, if you're not careful, you can end up telling the whole list of jokes and then that's it. And that can get a little boring.

I've never really prided myself as being quick on my feet. Maybe you've had the experience where somebody's asked you a question and you give an answer, then later in the day you think, "Oh, I wish I'd said that!" I tend to journal these things and put the answers in sermons.

So much of a stand-up's life is doing live radio and having to be funny and quick on the spot with these strangers, and sort of surgical in terms of how funny I can be in three minutes.

You gotta improvise in life. You gotta improv if the police pull you over.

A lot of my work is a matter of reacting to surprises in life.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.

I think you're a better comedian when you're in the moment and you're kind of reacting to what's happening like a real person instead of doing rote memorization.

I started off doing live TV, so I kind of learnt that if I get myself into trouble, I get myself out of it.

Live TV has an amazing pace to it. You've got to be able to think quick, make changes last minute, and be funny and fast.

Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.

It comes down to the difference between what you were planning to do and what life throws at you and you have to end up doing. The one who knows how to improvise is the one who comes out ahead.

So I usually call the songs when I get on the stage, according to what the crowd feels like to me. I can jump from 50 years ago to right up to now, and people will be familiar with the songs. And since we never do them the same way, it's a new experience.

One week you may be an actor, and the next week you had to be nimble enough to be a TV host. And the week after that, you might have to do some stand-up or be in an improv company or write and sing a song somewhere.

I had a lot of learning on my feet.

Sometimes it's cool to have banter with the audience. Occasionally, somebody will say something, and I'll say something right back, and everybody laughs, and it's funny.

It is exhilarating and dangerous to perform live. You are walking a tight rope in front of hundreds of people: anything could happen on stage, and whatever does, you must find a way to make it work.

There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going, literally, when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do.

I'm always making micro-adjustments onstage, listening to the audience, and what a crowd is like can be infectious.

If the rhythm or beat of the music changes with a live orchestra, you have to think on your feet. If you feel like you are not on your leg, you have to make a decision to make it look as though nothing is going wrong.