David Cross Quotes

I don't think one should be comfortable standing on a stage with people applauding and laughing at every stupid thing you say.

It's interesting to watch myself with an audience; I'm trying hard to learn from it.

To be honest, I don't know really what I do on stage.

I have always had a need for attention but didn't plan to be a comic.

Everything about filmmaking is incredibly weird, and there's nothing natural about watching yourself on the big screen or hearing your voice. It's that same thing that you feel when you watch yourself on a video camera and you hate the sound of your voice - it's that times 800.

I'd love to get into some comedy, but people keep saying, 'You're not funny!' And I say, 'Well, fair enough.' I have done comedy on stage.

I think because I've been working in front of audiences for so many years, I'm able to take in the input, good or bad, and just say, 'This is the part I agree with that you're saying, and these are the parts I don't agree with.'

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

I really like to hear actors talk about acting, but I don't really like hearing myself talk.

I'm quite shy. Television presents an amplified version of yourself. When I'm on camera I'm pumping more adrenaline, I'm being a bit more engaging than I am in everyday conversation, but that's normal, isn't it? Otherwise nobody would want to watch.

Live performance really terrifies me. I haven't done it, really, in years. I think that's why I retired from my brief career in stand-up.

Actually I don't choose to expose myself in public. I choose to compete; the other side just comes with the package.

I wasn't interested in having to live with a camera - I have a hard enough time getting along with myself. I don't need cameras around and all that action.

I was booed at the premiere of 'Miss Julie,' a remarkably stimulating experience.

To be thrown onto the stand-up stage is an experience that you cannot fathom until you're actually there, because there's no place to go, and everyone is looking at you and you can't even see them because of the lights. And yet you have to manage to start talking and be funny on top of it.

I'm not very good at being a performing monkey.

If I'm at a book signing, and someone decides to take me to task, it can make for quite a sticky moment.

Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.

Getting up in front of the toughest crowds, you know, playing pubs in South Armagh - where people didn't necessarily even know what stand-up comedy was - you had to force yourself to do it. It went against every instinct in your body, but you did it anyway.

I started comedy in 2006. I didn't even think it was a thing I could do.

That's the thing: when I'm on stage, I don't care; there could be ten people there, there could be ten million people there. But if I'm offstage, I'm, like, counting the people. I know exactly where everyone's standing, how far they are from me.

With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.

I am literally horrible at speaking to a camera.

Even the idea of people paying to hear me shouting into a microphone for an hour is alien to me - and I hope it always will be.

It's taken me a long, long time to figure out how to deal with negativity, because it used to really upset me. I was always that girl that, if I was performing in the club and there was one person not paying attention or not liking me, the whole club could be packed with people loving me, but I'd be obsessed with that one person.