Demetri Martin Quotes

I've got quite a few friends in the comedy world as you meet a lot of people.

L.A. gets a bad rap, but that's not the case. Everybody's like a real family out here. I think a lot of that comes from UCB Theatre, Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, Matt Besser, and Ian Roberts. They're really funny, but they're also upstanding people.

As soon as I heard the term 'comedy nerd,' I'd hoped there was a lot of them.

As a comedy nerd, I get a lot out of the podcast because I'm genuinely interested in the people I'm talking to.

When I started, there was no comedy community, no comedy industry; there were comedians.

I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me.

I wasn't one of those kids who stole Richard Pryor records. I wasn't a comedy-nerd kid. I had no concept of stand-up. Actually, the only inkling of stand-up I had was I read one of Paul Reiser's books when I was, like, 12. I found it at a yard sale, and I carried it around with me for six years.

People ask me about my influences and I say all the comedians in the 1970s and Dave Allen was a massive influence and a very big influence on a lot of modern comics.

Stand-up comedians have a very important relationship to Twitter. For them, it's a place to try out material.

I've been doing stand-up for a few years, and I have a handful of fans just from stuff I've done, like 'Last Comic Standing.' And as a fan of stand-ups myself ... like, when I first discovered Sarah Silverman, I wanted to know everything about her life.

When I started, I was very deliberate about making friends with people like John Mulaney who were really funny and wanted to go up and do as many open mics as I did.

I'm not a comedian. I didn't study sketch comedy; my background isn't that.

Some comics are in it for what they can get out of it. Others are in it for a love of comedy. I think those that are in it for a genuine love of comedy find each other within the circuit and become friends.

I was in love with a lot of people, because I was a student of the game of comedy - Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Moms Mabley - who gets no credit, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Kirby. I loved them all, and I used to just take a page out of all of them.

I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all.

If you like standup and decide that it's overtaking your life and want to hate it, watch 1,000 standup comedians who are trying to get on a TV show.

I grew up loving David Letterman and Pee-wee Herman, but as far as live performance comedy, all I knew were the Jerry Seinfeld-type comedians of the world, and that's what I thought live performance comedy was all about.

I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.

I came from the Groundlings Theatre in L.A., and there, you're guaranteed to at least try something out in front of an audience. At 'SNL,' only the best stuff gets picked, and it's taught me a very defined language of comedy. You learn the structure of a joke, which is not something I was very good at beforehand.

The Internet has done nothing but good for comedy all around. Comedians no longer have to rely on TV execs and club owners deciding if they are funny or not.

Podcasts feature comedians being as funny as they can be in a non-censored situation. It's really akin to standup in a way. When you go see a comedian in standup, that is the most pure, unadulterated form of their art.

It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.

T.J. Miller and Kumail Nanjiani I met when I was in Chicago, learning how to do comedy.

I'd say I've gone to grad school for comedy being on 'Community.'

Dad had a music store, and he'd often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy.