Jim Gaffigan Quotes

Stand-up will always be my first love, and it has been the primary way I've expressed myself since I was 17.

I just loved stand-up comics as a kid. I'd watch them on 'The Tonight Show,' and I thought what a great craft it was to come out on stage with no instrument or anything and be able to entertain people.

Stand-up is cool. In stand-up, you get to learn about yourself if you do it from a thoughtful place.

A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.

I call it 'new forms'. When you're starting out, they ask you to do four or five minute sets, but once you're a headliner, you do like 90 minutes. I try to think of different things to divvy up the show, like doing drawings, playing music... I gotta carry the show, that's the problem.

Stand-up is not something that you're good at right away. You have to do it a ton. But, I think I got to shave a year off because I didn't have to get over stage fright.

I really like to do comedy, and I did comedy the first 2 years after I graduated college, so I really love it and appreciate it.

I've been doing stand-up since '89.

Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance.

With stand-up, it doesn't matter who you are. If the audience claps because they love your movies, that clapping stops after five seconds, and then it's your job to make them laugh.

Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.

Stand-up keeps you alive. It is definitely the most specialized field in comedy because you need to stay sharp and well-tuned every night.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

I tend to a lot of improvisational ranting, and that's fun. For me, stand-up has been, performance-wise, a really good outlet.

When I was nine, we'd take a bus to the seaside. Coming back, we'd take turns entertaining, singing songs and the like. I tried some stand-up comedy. I had a captive audience in that bus. Then I realized I wanted to do more than that.

Once I started doing stand-up, everything fell into place. That was when I started acting more; I felt like I'd found my place in the business.

I prefer being known for my stand-up because I write it. I love being an actor, and saying other people's words is great. But then, when I do stand-up, I love getting my own point of view out there.

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part.

Everyone forgets comedians are actors. There's no question about it. A Robin Williams cannot say the same line every night for 40 weeks and make it sound fresh unless he's doing an acting job.

Whether it means having a show, or a movie, or just being on a stage, I need an avenue to say what I have to say.

Stand-up is kind of like my home base, and doing stand-up in New York is what I like doing most.

You know, my first album, some of those jokes I'd done for twelve years because I couldn't throw 'em out.

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

I'm always blown away by stand-ups. I'm blown away by people like that who are craftspeople at comedy.

Stand-up was my entree into the entertainment world. I didn't have to act out somebody else's words. I could just stand there with a microphone, and nobody would interrupt me. It's the most narcissistic thing you could probably do.