Emo Philips Quotes

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."

[sam] Kinison, when he started out, he'd come to Canada when I was first starting, and he'd always [bomb].

I never go see live comedy shows because I just sit in the audience thinking, "Here's what I would say. Here's what I would do if I got up there." It drives me crazy.

Having to stand in front of an audience and have it be your job to make them laugh, you can't really look to anyone but yourself. It's what you wrote, what you said and how you said it, so it's kind of terrifying, but I liked it. When it goes well, it's the best feeling in the world. When it doesn't go well, it's the worst feeling, but once you get into the rhythm of it, I think it's really fun.

With stand-up you've just got that one chance. Audiences can be quite fickle.

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

Unfortunately, I am not one of those comics where it's guaranteed that I hit it out of the park every time. You know, I am not completely reliable. It's always different, and it's a complete crapshoot whether I'm going to do well.

I was the class clown, but I was a reluctant class clown because I was always and still am somewhat embarrassed by performing. I have terrible stage fright, and I don't like being in front of people.

Whenever I'm onstage, I try my best not to think that I'm performing. It's simply another part of my day.

Writing humor in my column isn't as dangerous as performing it. If I fail in front of a live audience, the humiliation is as great as anything a human being can suffer.

I don't think I've ever died on stage. I've had jokes that died on stage. I've told a joke and absolutely nothing. They didn't know it was the end of the joke.

When you do stand-up, you're just concerned with trying to leave with some semblance of human dignity at the end of your performance.

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

I think there are so many little hurdles and impediments with stand-up that you'd need to have this insane desire to do it if you didn't have something that clicked right away.

I was in Antwerp - which, I had about 20 shows left at that point - and a guy said, "That's Dave Attell's." Also, Antwerp was my smallest audience, so the guy was right there. I was like, "What?" He said, "Dave Attell does a bit about, 'Why are there luggage stores in the airport?'" I had never seen that, and I would never ever, ever, ever - please believe me - I would never lift material from somebody ever, and certainly not knowingly.

Alan: "I had terrible stage fright." Sin: "I'm not familiar with the concept of 'stage fright.'" A: "It's pretty awful. You end up having to picture the entire audience in their underwear. Phyllis was in that audience, you know." S: "Why, Alan, I had no idea your tastes ran that way." A: "Phyllis is a very nice lady. And I do not consider her so much aged as matured, like a fine wine. But I still think you owe me an archery lesson.

I've had shows where you think, "Is this going well? I can't tell," and then you say goodnight and you get this ovation. They're sorta like a theater audience. I've learned that much; that they're not always going to be doing backflips - but I'll never figure it out. Because sometimes you walk up there, and they're so excited, and then other times, it's just... But sometimes an audience is bad, and you can tell them they're bad, and that sort of breaks the ice a bit.

Joan Rivers is 80 and she's fantastic. She lives in mortal fear of not filling that 1,500-seat room.

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.

I used to have a little whisky before I went on stage. I realized that could have slowly turned into something a bit more serious. I get hyped up. I also think doing it a lot, you get used to it. You get more confidence. It's confidence building, really.

At some point I stopped stand-up because I didn't have something to say on a nightly basis.

I just loved comedy as a kid and I think at some point, it just occurred to me that you could try it, and I did.

On Friday night, it was fun [to know] that if you bombed, or whatever was going on, that you'd be on TV at 11. It was a cool feeling, and you'd get a couple hundred dollars.

I had to write a comedy set and film a show at the same time. And it's the second time I've been up on stage as a stand-up comedian with untested material. I was saying it out loud for the first time that night. It didn't go how I expected, but in the best possible way.

I like to read, but otherwise I'm just your average, self-obsessed comedian. It's pretty much all I think about.