David Steinberg Quotes

But I also know in standup, there's nowhere to hide. You get on stage and you deliver, or you are eviscerated and you are thrown into a pile of bodies at the bottom of a mountain.

Everybody in comedy has something like that happen to them: They bomb, or no one shows up. You're like, 'Hey, I'm funny, trust me!' And the world collectively goes, 'Yeah, you and everybody else.'

With a live audience, it's very clear when you've pushed it too far to the edge - because you fall off that edge and hit bottom with a thud. Nothing abstract about that. You know you went too far when you hear that groan or worse - that silence instead of the big laugh you were expecting following your hilariously edgy joke.

I did my first set at a talent show, and I couldn't finish because the judges didn't like my jokes. They were 'offensive.'

I remember thinking as I was doing the jokes for the first time, "If I can hear that very clearly, I'm not hearing laughter." It just became deafening, this buzzing noise. I mean, it was brutal. It was really terrible. Then I remember thinking, "At least nobody important, or anyone who I really respect, saw that." And then literally right when I went off the stage, Jerry Seinfeld got up and went on. So I was like, "Oh great. Seinfeld saw me bomb." On the other hand, I thought, "At least no one will be thinking of me anymore. They'll just be focusing on him."

There isn't a comedian in the world that hasn't bombed.

It's grueling never knowing if the audience is going to think you're funny. It's soul-destroying when they don't laugh.

I started to do a study on how not to do stand-up comedy. Yeah, it's lonely work. You die, you die alone. It's you, the light, and the audience. If you win, you win big. If you lose, you lose big time.

As a comedian, I don't know if they're laughing because it's funny or if they're laughing at me because I'm not funny. And I'm thinking, 'Who cares? They're laughing.' If you go on stage, and they're laughing at you full-on for 60 minutes? You know, whatever puts them in the seats.

I've experienced plenty of times when something I think is funny doesn't do very well. And there are times when something I don't think is funny makes the audience laugh so hard.

I wasn't exactly uncomfortable when I did my first comedy. I was just very aware of the risks; if you do a comedy that sucks, and you suck in it, then you won't get a chance to do it again.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

Comedy clubs can be brutal. Those people are for real, and if you aren't funny, they aren't laughing. They don't care who you are.

In standup, the feedback is instantaneous, and if it fails, you know you'll be off-stage and hiding in a short time.

The Apollo seats 3,600 people: I could hear them making a huge noise for Milton Jones and Lee Mack. If the audience doesn't make the same amount of noise for you, you feel like you've failed.

A joke bombing on stage doesn't bother me, especially if it's intended to bomb.

Most comics' first gig is either brilliant or horrific.

There is nothing quite as loud as the silence of an audience when a comedian is on stage.

There is a magical, unexplainable phenomenon that still occurs to this day where, however funny you think the material you've written is, as soon as you turn up to a gig to try it out, it becomes almost incoherent.

The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.

The real challenge in acting is in comedy. It's easier to get that gasp in a drama. Not easy, because you still have to find that emotional pitch. And when you do something in drama and you hear that sob from the audience it's so fulfilling. But as a comic actor, when the laugh is supposed to come and you punch in that line and nothing happens it is dreadful. It's horrific and you feel like dying right there.

Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them.

I find Washington audiences are basically the same as every other audience; they watch me and go, 'Who's idea was it to go see him? And is it too late to ask for my money back?'

With comedy, it's a combination of knowing the comedic beat was good - it made you laugh, it made people on the crew laugh. With drama, you do something deep and if your stuff was really effective, the ultimate result is silence. Silence is not necessarily... that would also be the result if you sucked.

You have to be willing to deal with the ups and downs of the music, the ups and downs of the audience.