John Tesh Quotes

I guess the best advice I ever got or anyone could get for doing a talk show, though it has not been easy very often, was from Jack Paar, who said, 'Kid, don't make it an interview. Interviews have clipboards, and you're like David Frost. Make it a conversation.'

A talk show is about having a look at a famous face, a bit of stand-up comedy, knockabout stuff - an interview is what Barbara Walters or Connie Chung does in the States, in-depth, done properly.

Since I was 8 years old, I wanted to be a talk show host.

I don't think I'd be a very good talk show host. I mean, I'm very talkative but I don't know if I could do that all the time.

In my next life, I would like to be Charlie Rose or Howard Stern or maybe something in between.

But I really like hosting, I think it's a strength of mine. It allows me to improvise, and I love the spontaneity of that, and I think I'm funny behind the desk when interviewing someone.

I started doing a half-hour Sunday night talk show on college radio station KUNV. That excited me more than anything I'd ever done. I went through the Yellow Pages to find people who seemed interesting. I'd goof on these people, but they were so excited to be on the radio that they didn't even notice.

When I go in to 'Comedy Bang Bang,' I'll go in most of the time with some beats of where we're going with the idea. Everything else is improvised. Nothing is scripted. A lot of times I'll go in there with nothing and it's just conversation with the character.

I don't think it's necessary to do stand-up to be a presenter, but I like it, because it keeps me sharp, especially when something like 'Take Me Out' is 80% is ad-libbed, so that works for me.

I want to be a late night host and the podcast is a way for me to do longer form interviews and to get better at interviewing.

Ellen DeGeneres is great. She has this natural style, and she makes comedy look so easy.

I guess telling stories is an art. I never looked at it that way. I just started talking, and everyone started laughing. So I kept talking, and they kept laughing.

There are a million things I can think of that I would I want to do. Reporting like you, would be one. A talk show host maybe, also. I want to do a lot.

Someday I would really love to do a talk show. That's something I've always been interested in. I like to talk, and I love to help people.

Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.

I like talking. I like acting.

Improv classes were too expensive, so I just started going to open mics. And the day I did it, I did, like, three because I just loved it so much. It was so much fun. And it wasn't good, it was just fun to do. It felt like a release.

I am terrible at memorizing things. Hence, ad-libbing.

I'm a talk-show host, I'm going to be a talk-show host.

Part of my style was getting into a muddle. Audiences think that's part of the act. Sometimes it might be - but you have to guess which bits.

I'm a journalist and, before, a next TV star.

I've had some shows where I really plan out what I'm going to say. Then I've had other shows where I'm like, 'Take a sip of the Ole Smoky Moonshine and just let it be natural and cross your fingers that you say the right things.'

But the worst feeling as a crowd work practitioner is that not only is crowd work, for me, the most fun thing to do on stage - I always say the less written jokes I tell in a set the more fun I was having--but it's also a secret weapon.

Like a good play-caller, a good TV guy, if you get going on a good conversation, you can ad-lib a little bit. You keep it going. Just like in a game, if you call a couple plays and they're working, you come back to them.

I'm not very good when I'm given scripts.