Steven Wright Quotes

I always wanted to be a comedian and actor.

I did years of summer stock. I sort of only wanted to be an actor. And then at 19, I was funny, and I had some of these bits that I did for friends, and I immediately could get on television.

My whole life, I knew that I was going to be funny for a living.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.

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.

I always wanted to be a comedian, but I wasn't sure how you do that.

My whole initial goal was to be a comedian, so it's not like I chose to do a TV show out of nowhere. It's kind of always been goal to do a TV show.

No, I never really set out to be a stand up. I wanted to be a writer of some sort. I thought I'd do a bit of stand up and hopefully that will lead to stuff and little did I know it kind of snowballed. Before I knew it I was doing stand up 300 nights a year.

I liked horror and comedy, basically, from a young age, but I just ended up getting into comedy because there was - I could do stand-up comedy, and that was my way into this business, and then there was no stand-up horror, and I didn't know how to get into that world.

I don't want a chat show or to be on telly every day, as that's not my business; my business is standing in front of people and making them laugh, and I want to see how far I can get with that.

What I'd really like to do is do a film or two a year and then do theater in New York the rest of the year.

I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I didn't get here for my acting... but I love show business.

I'm just a guy who happens to work in public from time to time. I've built a reputation as an established comic, not as a celebrity - a celebrity is someone who is famous but doesn't do anything.

To get a job where the only thing you have to do in your career is to make people laugh-well, it's the best job in the world.

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

I did standup while still working for Johnny Carson in the mid-'60s, thus gaining the advantage of at least getting laughs from him about how I hadn't the night before.

I do films which get me out of my comedian routine so that I don't get bored being a stand-up comedian. And with films, it's here today, gone tomorrow. So stand-up comedy is here to stay for me.

I've been doing stand-up just about every night since I started in 1989. It's my home base. But I'm into doing comedy in all mediums, platforms and situations.

I had fun doing a lot of low-budget movies and web series. And I got back into stand-up where I started.

This whole celebrity racket, it's not really my bag. I don't really do that stuff, and I am not looking to get famous myself. I would love it if my characters get famous, my work was well known and appreciated. But I'm an actor, not a spokes model or a celebrity or whatever that is. I don't know how to be that.

Growing up, I wasn't sure about acting, but I knew I wanted to be part of the movie industry.

People see me on the 'Daily Show' or 'About a Boy'. But the reality is that I only got into this business to do standup comedy.