Jim Gaffigan Quotes

I would not have succeeded as a comedian had I not had some hugely lucky breaks.

I always had one goal, and that was to be a real funny stand-up comic, and that's pretty much what I'm doing. And everything else is kind of like gravy - TV, movies.

I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

What I've learnt being an actor is that you've got to be lucky. I got less lucky, and nobody was interested. If a part came up, it would be for the main corpse's friend's brother who was having problems with his marriage.

I used to beg for auditions. Now, they're being thrown at me.

I got cast on 'MADtv' as one of eight permanent cast members chosen from 8,000 comics who'd been screened. For any comic trying to make something of themselves, that was like hitting triple 7s-jackpot.

I started in the club route. I did the alternative scene later on. When I lived in New York, I did the Luna Lounge and stuff, where Janeane Garofalo and David Cross and all those guys worked out of, but I came from a comedy club background. I'm proud of that background. I'm one of the people that really crossed over and did both.

We then took a shortened version of what we'd been doing in the pubs, with the best gags and things like that, out to cabaret clubs and things in the north of England for six weeks. And we became a big success.

A lot of stand-up comedy guys, when they get a little famous, just give up their stand-up career, and it cancels out the thing that set them apart.

I left for New York expecting to repeat my success, only to be turned down by almost every publisher in that city, till the Viking Press, my American publishers of a lifetime, thought of taking me on.

All the people I looked up to - Roseanne, Tim Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld - were stand-up comedians who used humor to get TV shows. I'm on TV now, and I'm working towards getting my own show.

People would be like, 'Oh, 'Saturday Night Live' is such a stepping stone!' And I remember being like, 'A stepping stone?! This is my everything! I could just stop right here! This is the pinnacle!'

I feel blessed to be able to do my stand up comedy all over the world, because some people never even leave New York.

But I sent letters to people in the music business. And one day I got a phone call from somebody and he asked me when I was born and where I was born. And, you know, three or four days later I got a call. Someone said, you know, Yoko Ono wanted to meet me in New York. I got on a plane. And the next day I was having coffee with John Lennon.

I started doing stand-up when I was 15 and doing Letterman when I was 20. So I've been doing stand-up comedy and clubs for over 30 years. That's a long time.

I got into comedy at exactly the right moment.

The New York theater community didn't like being invaded by reality stars - they still don't - but I got in there and auditioned just like everybody else. They hired me for 'Hairspray' to help sell tickets for a few weeks, but I ended up being there much longer than originally planned and started to carve a niche for myself.

They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now.

To succeed in comedy you ultimately have to put in the hours and get lucky - The amount of people who are able to break through is so small a fraction of the amount of people trying.

When I went into Bobby's World, I had no idea it would be a success. I had been doing the Bobby voice as part of my nightclub adult act for years.

At the time, I was reading this Miles Davis book, and he was talking about coming to New York right after he was in high school. It kind of made me feel like, "Yeah." I didn't want to go to college; I wanted to do stand-up. And I figured, "What's the point of doing stand-up around DC? I'm always going to be under-appreciated there because I started there." I felt like I was strong enough and unique enough that I should give it a big leash to shine. New York was the best thing that ever happened to me as a comedian.

My goals were small. My goal was to become a big enough stand-up that I wouldn't have to do radio. I could sell out a club, which is like 300 seats. If I got big enough, I could sell before I got there, and I wouldn't have to get up at 6 in the morning to do radio. That was pretty much the dream. I had no idea I'd be playing Madison Square Garden or anything.

I really wanted to, but I just didn't understand how people became comedians. I kind of thought it was something you were born into. And so I wanted to be a veterinarian or an architect. I wanted to be in a band, and for some reason I could understand how you could be in a band because I had guitars and all my friends played music. Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.

I keep doing specials because I think there are a lot of people who make movies and TV who are fans of comedy - if they start to like you, they'll get a project going and call you in.

Not that that's my goal, but when you're very wealthy and very famous, you can have a lot more decisions in what you do. You have a lot more opportunity. You can maybe even not work for a few years. It puts you in a great position to make some decisions. You're not always taking every job that comes and that kind of thing.