Bill Burr Quotes

The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.

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.

I continue to do standup because there's a connection with a live audience - there are skills that you do learn as a standup comedian that help you on a set.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

I've been a live performer longer than I've been a television performer. For me, live is where it's at.

I don't know, on a sitcom, and in theatre especially, you have to really be listening to an audience. And if you're losing them, you can hear the sniffs, and the playbills shuffling and whatnot.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

As much experience, education and awareness as one can attain is important for a comedian.

At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.

I like my messiness on stage, though I watch comics who come at a joke from every angle and I think, 'Yeah! That's how it's done!' But for me it's the audience. If I feel connected to them, I have so much fun, and if not, it stinks.

Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, 'This is where I wanna be.'

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room, you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything.

You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set, because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb, and you know not to tell that joke again... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness.

I would love to do more TV and do movies for the experience, but my ultimate focus is stand-up. It's the number one thing that I love most because there is nothing like being with a live audience.

When you're doing comedy constantly, you're organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing 'SNL,' I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets - it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

I have performed my one-man show '700 Sundays' over 400 times now. There were only two times that I can honestly say I was nervous. The first was when I knew Mel Brooks was in the audience, and the second was when Sid Caesar came.

It's a really nice way to cut your teeth, doing live shows. It's like going to the gym because you do have to think fast. You are constantly under the threat of people not laughing. Instead of getting hit, people could just not laugh, so you really are trying to mine quickly for the funniest thing you could say in that moment.

I still love to walk on stage and make people laugh, and I work very, very hard at it, and I take it seriously.

Being able to write jokes is great, but you still have to get used to performing them and being on stage - and enjoying being on stage, not just like tolerating it.

In the U.K. and Ireland, crowd-work is a big thing. It shows you how funny someone would be if you met them off-stage. Americans don't care if you're funny off-stage. They want to see the writing; they want to see the work you did.

I did a standup show called 'Show Me the Funny,' so from that I got some TV stuff and people would book me for gigs. I wasn't really good enough at that point, so had to catch up with expectations.

I think you develop strong instincts when you're a comedian. You have to pay your bills by making people laugh every six seconds... or not. I had to do that for 22 years.

It took me a good eight to ten years to really formulate what I was doing onstage and start to get really personal with comedy. I always really had timing naturally, it was just about trying to figure out how that timing was going to work onstage.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.