Donald Glover Quotes

I know what I want to talk about, but I don't really know what's funny about a joke until I perform it in front of an audience.

As a comic, you try something and if it works you go with it and grind it to death.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

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

Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.

As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

I never used to tell jokes on stage. Now I'm cutting up jokes all night long.

Not everyone can be as successful a performer as myself, who gave 10 great performances the first time I ever did comedy, and then toiled in obscurity for years.

Stand-up is the kind of gig that'll show you where you're at.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating.

Comedy is incredibly hard. You have to be loose. You have to be not afraid to fail.

With silly stuff, it's seventy-five percent confidence. I always tell people that it's because I'm nervous about getting that next laugh and I need to hear it. I always want to condense a joke.

The first time I did stand-up was on a dare.

Whenever I go on a show with a comedian I just counter punch.

Stand-up keeps you alive. It is definitely the most specialized field in comedy because you need to stay sharp and well-tuned every night.

I failed to get into drama school, and my best friend told me I should do stand-up instead. I was always doing gags and voices, so he booked a gig for me without telling me. I only had four days to write it. I did a seven-minute set; the first four minutes were terrible, but the last two were amazing.

I was a failed actor but I still wanted to show off, so I ended up doing live comedy.

When you're doing comedy constantly, you're organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing 'SNL,' I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets - it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.

Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it's dangerous.

I would love to do comedy, but you have to be phenomenally good. I'm not sure I'm there yet. I can imagine it being so much fun but I don't think I've quite got the gall to go ahead just yet.

There's a certain truism that you can't be self-conscious in comedy.

I had no desire to get up onstage and tell jokes. I prefer to stand next to really funny people.