Vince Vaughn Quotes

Comedy clubs can be brutal. Those people are for real, and if you aren't funny, they aren't laughing. They don't care who you are.

I like the stage lights to be bright so I can't see people because I will inevitably only see the ones who aren't laughing.

But I also know in standup, there's nowhere to hide. You get on stage and you deliver, or you are eviscerated and you are thrown into a pile of bodies at the bottom of a mountain.

The audience changes every night. You're the same person. You have to speak your mind and do the stuff that you think is funny and makes you laugh.

The Apollo seats 3,600 people: I could hear them making a huge noise for Milton Jones and Lee Mack. If the audience doesn't make the same amount of noise for you, you feel like you've failed.

Just to talk in front of people is scary. And now you gotta learn how to be funny, and now you gotta learn how to make people laugh at what you think is funny. That's not easy.

Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react.

When you go out there to do comedy, you feel like you're doing battle with the audience a lot of the time. You're either going to get 'em, or you're not.

With a live audience, it's very clear when you've pushed it too far to the edge - because you fall off that edge and hit bottom with a thud. Nothing abstract about that. You know you went too far when you hear that groan or worse - that silence instead of the big laugh you were expecting following your hilariously edgy joke.

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed.

I like getting up in front of an audience. It's fun when you go to a baseball game and the crowd is cheering you. I can't deny it. And it's very funny, too. Sometimes you're shy; you go somewhere and everyone's looking at you, so you feel a little self-conscious.

Some people expect me to be funny all the time, and I'm not necessarily funny all the time.

The hardest part, for real, is probably when you just don't feel like going on stage and being funny.

I can't imagine actually singing on this show like I did on 'Felicity', but it would be kind of funny.

I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd.

When I was a young comic just starting out, I was very cautious, as I didn't want to alienate people. George Carlin's bravery became a benchmark. I became perfectly fine with alienating some people in the audience. That just comes with the territory.

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

As a comedian, I don't know if they're laughing because it's funny or if they're laughing at me because I'm not funny. And I'm thinking, 'Who cares? They're laughing.' If you go on stage, and they're laughing at you full-on for 60 minutes? You know, whatever puts them in the seats.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2,000 people.

Doing stand-up takes the fun out of being funny.

And I think I'm an adrenaline junkie, and there's nothing that will spike your adrenaline more than sitting in a theater and listen to an audience react to something you've written.

I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.

If there's an audience, I think they're going to expect me to be funny. But what if I'm not funny? What if I fail?

A joke bombing on stage doesn't bother me, especially if it's intended to bomb.