Debra Winger Quotes

When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.

I basically did comedy there for about a year, and then moved to New York. If I had it to do over again, I would have booked myself on the road for at least a year.

I am a comedian and I started in stand-up when I was 22.

I call myself a comic.But I started as an actress. I did plays since I was 5.

Not all comedy clubs or situations are ideal, especially when you're first coming up and I think that's good for you. Eventually you get to express your real personality.

I've been trying to bust into the comedy business my whole life. It's hard in Hollywood to do different things. I know this. It's a struggle.

I first did stand-up when I was 17, and then I passed out fliers for a comedy club (in New York City) and I got onstage whenever I could. And musical theater went out the window as soon as I started doing stand-up.

I've spent the last few years just really actively pursuing comedy and that's something I always wanted to know how to do.

I think I'm not uber into the comedy scene, but I love to laugh, especially in our business, where you're always front and center over an extremely, sometimes overly-critical live audience. I think it helps to laugh.

For the most part, comedy is the only fair part of show business.

I'm not very funny in real life. I used to want to be a comedian when I was 13, 14, 15, till I saw "Death Of A Salesman" with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.

I always knew I wanted to do comedy. I like making people laugh. I started out young just making my family laugh and trying to make kids laugh in school and getting into plays. I think it's the only thing I know how to do so hopefully it works out.

Everyone who wants to make it in comedy goes to L.A., so a million comedians fight for time on three stages. If you get in there in New York, you're working eight times a night sometimes. Who's going to be funny, the guy who works once a week, or the guy working eight times a night?

I've been a comedian since I was fourteen. But I've never really been a CEO.

I spent 25 years as a stand-up comedian.

I will always do stand-up, even if my acting career takes off. Stand-up is my life.

From 1987 to 1992, I was on the road for 40 weeks a year playing comedy clubs, and that was during the 'comedy boom.'

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.

I started once a week in North Carolina at a pub called Charlie Goodnight and met a lot of comics there. Then I moved to L.A., and if you're not known, it's hard to get stage time. So you start out doing what they call 'bringers' - you have to bring five people if you wanna get on stage. It was a lot of hustle, a learning curve.

I started going to the open mics every day in 2003. You make the comics laugh, they get you work, and you build up your reputation. It was a slow process.

As a stand-up comic, you have to do the road.

I kind of knew inside that I wanted to try comedy, but it was a mystery. How do you start? So when I hit 30 and I had done everything I wanted to do in journalism, so I went to a comedy class. I figured I'd learn how to do five minutes and see how it feels.

I've played every comedy club and every theatre across the country for the last 25 years and seen a lot of audience members from different ethnic persuasions.

Like everybody, I started out doing 'bringer' shows - the kind where if you show up with a certain number of people, you get to perform. Sometimes I would actually pay strangers off the street to come in and see my set.

See, I'm totally fearless. I got my chops in the most, like, dangerous comedy atmosphere. If you can make it in New York, you can really do stand-up anywhere.