Marc Maron Quotes

What crushed my soul was hanging out with bitter, desperate comics backstage. They're a different breed than the bitter yet eager psyches in the wings of an improv theatre. Struggling stand-ups have externalized self-loathing into an art form. They're a hunching, quaking, unshaven lot.

Put me up against Sarah Silverman and I could take her.

I'd love to do acting, but it'd definitely have to be comedy. I can't do serious. It's completely beyond me.

Because comedy is cheap to put on: if you've got a play or an opera, there's a whole load of people and a set, but comedy is just one man or woman. And because TV has learned to love comics - there's so many more around now than when I started out.

People want their actors to do comedy, too. They don't want any comedians next to the actor. They want one solo hero and want to see everything in him.

Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics.

It sounds gross to say that I like myself more. But not everyone likes themselves that much. Especially in the comedy world.

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

In the '90s, comedy was at a very low point, but these days, you've got people like Hannibal Burress, Ron Funches, Maria Bamford - people who can play any club, anywhere.

People like reality; I think it's always happened from the Roman times, when people used to go to a coliseum and watch people compete against each other. I think networks and cable channels find it an easier way of producing and putting things together, because people will watch it and it's cheaper.

As far as guys who perform onstage, I love Chris Rock. I'm kind of jaded on everyone else.

It's 103 comedians, or however many it is, and how would everyone tell it. It's enough people of substance that it makes you think of the people who aren't there that are alive.

I don't watch that much comedy. I think it's professional jealousy. That and a lack of support for my community.

There are a lot of comics at the top end making staggering amounts of money and selling out stadiums. I think stand-up is a more intimate thing than that. Maybe because of the kind of comedy I do. It's like a discussion, but I'm the one with the microphone.

I enjoy comedic things. People don't understand it's the hardest thing to do. We have a ratio of 25-to-1 between good dramatic actors and people who are considered good comic actors.

What I've found in my career is that 70 to 75 percent of comics are nice and have some sense of social skills, but there are those who end up in comedy because they don't know how to socialize. I don't want to deal with that group.

When it comes to English stand-up comedy, Indians have only seen the best - Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and the like. So, when someone claims to be an English stand-up comedian in India, he'd better be very good if he's going to make a life of it.

Unquestionably, standup comedy is and has always been an art form.

I'm labeled a comedic actor, which is awesome. But I love getting the occasional dramatic role, too. Some of your best dramatic actors are ultimately comedians.

I don't laugh so much at jokes and premises as I do at a guy who goes onstage and starts twitching and acting funny.

I feel like comedy is only respected on the highest level, and on every other level, it's like a joke, like, 'Ugh - comedian,' you know?

I think one of the reasons all the comics I worked with dropped off the log so early, and a lot of them did - Tony Hancock, Frankie, Sid James, it's dreadful really - was the stress. You can only be as good or better than the last show, and there's the permanent aggro of hoping you get the right writers and the right material.

My biggest pet peeve, I guess, is other comedians criticizing Larry the Cable Guy.

I personally find it difficult to accept that there could be anyone on earth insensitive to the comic abilities of Laurel and Hardy, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, or Martin Short. But no matter who the comic entertainer is, there is always at least a minority prepared to say, 'What's all the excitement about? He doesn't seem funny to me.'

I support the homies, like Mike Jay and Hannibal Buress. And I listen to Comedy Central Radio in the car.