Seth Rogen Quotes

Having to stand in front of an audience and have it be your job to make them laugh, you can't really look to anyone but yourself. It's what you wrote, what you said and how you said it, so it's kind of terrifying, but I liked it. When it goes well, it's the best feeling in the world. When it doesn't go well, it's the worst feeling, but once you get into the rhythm of it, I think it's really fun.

[sam] Kinison, when he started out, he'd come to Canada when I was first starting, and he'd always [bomb].

It's hard to get laughs when you're new.

Thinking up jokes is easy. The hard part is trying them out on stage, because you never know if they're funny until you get there. Not one comedian in the world ever really knows.

There are lines that I know are going to get a belly laugh, but after a few shows I get sick of hearing myself say them so I drop them.

In standup, the feedback is instantaneous, and if it fails, you know you'll be off-stage and hiding in a short time.

A joke bombing on stage doesn't bother me, especially if it's intended to bomb.

Although I do stand-up - doing actual stage work is terrifying for me.

I never go see live comedy shows because I just sit in the audience thinking, "Here's what I would say. Here's what I would do if I got up there." It drives me crazy.

I was the class clown, but I was a reluctant class clown because I was always and still am somewhat embarrassed by performing. I have terrible stage fright, and I don't like being in front of people.

At some point I stopped stand-up because I didn't have something to say on a nightly basis.

On Friday night, it was fun [to know] that if you bombed, or whatever was going on, that you'd be on TV at 11. It was a cool feeling, and you'd get a couple hundred dollars.

Writing humor in my column isn't as dangerous as performing it. If I fail in front of a live audience, the humiliation is as great as anything a human being can suffer.

It's a sick thing, right: people are afraid of public speaking. I do public speaking, except my public speaking involves the audience only having one type of emotion and one type of reaction. If they have anything other than laughter, it's a failure. That's an absurd thing for a human to try to seek. The main thing to realize is that whatever I say, it's my truth and I believe in it, and if I don't get a laugh off that, then it's not working.

I don't think I've ever died on stage. I've had jokes that died on stage. I've told a joke and absolutely nothing. They didn't know it was the end of the joke.

It's depressing sitting at a comedy club all night, waiting to get on to do your five or ten minutes of material.

My first open mic, I drank a full pitcher of beer by myself. I wasn't afraid of being in front of people as much as, Is this funny?

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

The worst moment was when I was performing and I was about to sing, but I choked. I had a tickle in my throat and I started coughing, and I couldn't get the words out. It lasted for like thirty seconds, but I got over it, and luckily the crowd didn't seem to care.

With a live audience, it's very clear when you've pushed it too far to the edge - because you fall off that edge and hit bottom with a thud. Nothing abstract about that. You know you went too far when you hear that groan or worse - that silence instead of the big laugh you were expecting following your hilariously edgy joke.

You say a line and you wait for them to laugh, then you say another line and you wait... It felt weird to me. But it's interesting and the energy is almost like theatre, I suppose, with all the people there.

But I also know in standup, there's nowhere to hide. You get on stage and you deliver, or you are eviscerated and you are thrown into a pile of bodies at the bottom of a mountain.

There isn't a comedian in the world that hasn't bombed.

I had - after I sang the 'Star Spangled Banner' so badly, after my tragic singing accident, after that, you know, all my stuff kind of, like, really got even more full blown and, you know, I got stage fright and, you know, I couldn't do stand-up anymore and let alone sing and all the other things.

In the summer after sixth grade, I took a class at St. Robert Bellarmine. My first role, I was the villain in a play, and I forgot all my lines. I think I cried my way through the performance.