Emo Philips Quotes

I'm not going to say the market is flooded, but there are a lot of people doing comedy.

I think comedy in the last 5-7 years is as good as it's ever been in America. I like it when people push it. You go through periods where people did not push the envelope. The more you push it, the funnier you get.

The Comedy Store - all three rooms were filled with 800 people in the room. And during that time, all these guys and some women, but mostly guys who weren't funny were doing stand up for a living; they weren't accountants, they were making $30-$50 grand a year on the road, or more.

I have a lot of friends who were stand-ups, and they just stopped after a while, because they didn't like that battle, or they just couldn't do it. And then they would get on a sitcom and get visible and get back into it, because the audience was just way easier on them. But they lost those crucial years of learning to turn any audience into your audience.

As a comedian, especially one that works as much as I do, there is a lot of sacrifice. People don't see that I'm away from my family 46 weeks out of the year. I miss all the birthdays and anniversaries and holidays.

When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.

Comedy is crowded. There are hundreds of comedians in every place in the world.

But the great thing about shows now is since we've been doing (Comedy Death Ray), they have lightened up on their booking policies a bit more and are booking somebody who isn't famous and who hasn't been around ten years. It's great to see people who've done our show - the first big show they've ever done - now they can play around town.

Judah Friedlander, I'm ok with you being the world champion for a few years more. That's a hook with legs. But I think he should make one more hat, that says 'there's a limit to how funny words on a hat can be'. And then move to a chapeau.

That's what it's like to be a comedian. You basically stand and stare at the world and hope it craps out cause that's a good year for you. So that's not a pleasant feeling.

When you start out in comedy, or probably in a lot of things, you want it to happen fast. You don't want to see yourself having to do this for seven years before you start to get some feedback.

When I made 'Sleepwalk with Me,' many people asked me if was a novelty thing, a one-off. But this is the goal, I'm just hitting it 12 years after I thought I would.

Sometimes I have young comics that ask me, "What should I do when I meet an agent or a manager and they ask me stuff?" And I say, "Well, they always usually ask, 'Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, 15 years?' And it's good to have an answer for that."

I think that if you, as a comedian, are trying to be in people's face, then you've got to come up with new stuff every year. We're in a mass consumption phase where people take things for granted and want things to be instant when these are not things that can be instant.

I haven't done a lot in London. I think comedy over there is how it was over here years ago. There's tons of it, and they're better paid.

I'm not focused on the outrageousness. I'm just focused on being funny, and raising my kids. I don't even read the newspaper, I don't read that crap.

If you can't write your own material, you have very little chance of making it as a comedian.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

Especially in the world of comedy, it feels like you have to be proactive, in terms of pitching and trying to sell and being a part of the creation of the stuff that you do.

For me, anything goes when I pick up a mike. I'm not trying to hurt people - I try not to get too personal - but I look at myself as a reporter. If you can report on anything that has to do with pop culture, then why can't I make jokes about it? Yes, it hurts. But I figure that laughter sometimes starts from pain. You might wince, but then I know that I'm doing my job. The only thing I can do wrong is not be funny.

All these years I've sat in airports and kind of drawn people and put like Far Side captions on them.

Comedians don't have hits. You have to have a whole brand-new hour. You have no hits to rely on.

I do just want to do jokes. I don't want to be a divisive figure.

Nobody sets out to offend or shock for the sake of shocking. You set out to get laughs.

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.