Sebastian Maniscalco Quotes

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

Impressions are still kind of hard for me and not what I love to do the most, but with characters, I think there's an element of fearlessness. You try to figure out the best reading and wording of the jokes before the show, and then you just really have to go hard.

I've been performing stand-up comedy for ten years, it's what I love and will always do.

There's a fraudulent root element of comedy in that we say things night after night as though they are rolling effortlessly from the brain and off the tongue, when in fact they are crafted over weeks and months and years.

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

When I began doing stand-up, it took me a long time to get an hour's worth of material together.

It takes many years to be a great comedian.

Your number one job as a comedian is to be aware. You're supposed to understand the temperature in the room more than anyone on the planet - that's the whole craft of comedy.

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

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

I got to a point where I wanted to have some dignity in what I'm saying onstage. I want people to hear what I'm saying, regardless of whether or not it gets a laugh. That became a lot more rewarding than straight acting could ever be for me.

You can succeed as a terrible director, but try doing that with stand-up: try being a terrible comedian and getting up on stage. The funny will win out very, very quickly.

When I was starting out, I was just bringing a garbage bag of jokes onstage, pulling them out like, 'What about this? No? Alright.' I was just trying to be funny about anything.

The more you work in this business as a comedian, the closer you get to just being yourself onstage, on camera, the more well received you are.

If you're not doing something or saying something in comedy, the camera is going to go somewhere else.

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.

One place that I really feel comfortable is being a comedienne. I'm very socially inept. There's so many things that I can not do in life, and this is, like, the one thing that I have mastery over. It's my world. And anybody who's coming to the show, it's like they're coming because they know that this is my world.

I don't know any comedian who tailors his act to his audience. Maybe people say they do, but I can't even imagine them.

So many of these comics are just frustrated singers or actors - they want to get a gig doing a sitcom. It's paint-by-the-numbers comedy, lame joke-telling. They're drawn to it as a career move.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

I think a theater show is a pure version of me doing my material. The theater crowd is a bit more polite, there really aren't hecklers, and there are a lot of people there to see me, and they're excited about the jokes and hanging out with me for a show.

Richard Lewis is the master at taking a joke that he's told a million times in a row in the past year, on the road, and making it look like he's pulling it out of thin air.

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.