Elayne Boosler Quotes

The hardest part of comedy is writing the jokes, and the second-hardest part is telling the jokes. To me, everything else is significantly easier.

I'd never experienced stress before I did stand-up, and it was a massive shock to my system, this thing of waking up, and the nerves of, 'You're on stage tonight.'

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

You can't be a proper comic unless you've been out on stage and felt the fear.

I never wanted to be road comic.

I had some friends that tried it down there, and I went to a couple of open mics, and I just kind of got this... this sick urge to try it instead of just watching it.

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

There are lines that I know are going to get a belly laugh, but after a few shows I get sick of hearing myself say them so I drop them.

Some comics have long routines to get them in the mood - I just prefer to sit down, write out the same jokes in a different order and then have a little prayer that I won't be met by silence.

The most frightening thing about playing Dick Gregory is I've never done stand-up before, and I had to learn how to be a stand-up comedian, which was a bit of a challenge.

I'm never going to be an improv comedian.

I don't really do stand-up.

I stopped doing standup because it stopped being fun. And the reason it stopped being fun was it was harder to write - and this was before the Internet - it was harder to write new stuff. It had gotten so crazy.

I can't claim to ever have done stand-up.

Getting up in front of the toughest crowds, you know, playing pubs in South Armagh - where people didn't necessarily even know what stand-up comedy was - you had to force yourself to do it. It went against every instinct in your body, but you did it anyway.

I never went on auditions because I would be terrible at it, so I just did stand-up.

I started comedy in 2006. I didn't even think it was a thing I could do.

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.

I'm not a natural comic, I don't think. That's why I gave up stand-up. It was hard. It involved a lot of death. Dying. Dying on stage. But it's one of those jobs you can only learn by doing it.

With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.

When I started out in stand-up, I was already used to speaking in front of people, how to project, control my voice - a lot of learning curves I had overcome.

The beautiful thing about stand-up advice is that it applies to anybody, any gender, any race, any age. The best thing you can do - everybody will tell you - is get on stage as much as you can. I would add to that: get on stage as much as you can - with the people you admire.

Doing stand-up is not normal. People fear public speaking above all other things, and I am no different.

I wasn't properly performing in Canada. I was just starting out, and when everyone starts out, they're terrible. I'm sure there are some Kellyanne Conway videos of me just really dying on a stage.