Kathy Griffin Quotes

I did so many open mics. I would write jokes on Twitter constantly, and then slowly, over time, open mics turned into shows. If you can get a joke to work at an open mic, it's a good joke.

So many of these comics are just frustrated singers or actors - they want to get a gig doing a sitcom. It's paint-by-the-numbers comedy, lame joke-telling. They're drawn to it as a career move.

I didn't really know how to write jokes, so I just told weird, long stories about being tall and beautiful and wealthy in New York. I'd tell them very seriously, but I kind of looked like a drag queen at the time with big wigs and crazy 12-inch platform heels.

Some people use stand-up to get something else in their careers, but it's truly the art form of stand-up I love.

I don't consider myself a comic but a performer. A comic tells bad jokes.

Stand-up came out of three things. Frustration, necessity and arrogance. I didn't have a great career ahead of me in anything. Someone literally said to me, 'You should try stand-up,' and took me to a venue.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

When I started, I was doing all the good comedians I'd ever seen. Then I developed my own voice. My routines are my natural way of looking at the world.

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

The best part about stand-up is that you control everything. Period.

I always want to go back and do stand-up; I like the freedom.

Maybe it's because I come from a very utopian world of being a comedian, but I'm used to many live comedy performances going on in any city I'm in, and each of us is trying to be the best at what we do. I don't think of it as a competition so much as a thriving comedy economy.

Stand-up comedy is an art form and it dies unless you expand it.

I've always wanted to do a segment on a talk show. Jay Leno has been such a good friend, and if he would allow me, I'd have to get it all together, but I'd like to go on 'The Tonight Show' and do a set with no props. Or come out with a trunk and never touch it. Or come out with a clear trunk with nothing in it.

My stand-up has always been very character-based. I'm not really the kind of person that's like, 'Hey, here's what's on my mind! Tip your waitress!' I would create the jokes based on the character I was playing. It was always a performance-based thing for me.

The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.

I became a stand-up because that was my survival.

If I'm not in the theatre, I'm in an open mic night or doing a guest set at the Comedy Club, or whatever, just trying to develop stuff.

I've always worked toward, and felt comfortable with, you know, pausing and guiding the audience on a longer bit.

Comedians who aren't screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They're expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

If you look up the definition of stand-up comedy, it's funny on purpose. A little bit of pressure there. It's basically acting. You're telling stories and acting them out for people. The more you make it seem real, really a person doing it, then it seems to me the better it works.

I've been entertaining men with my comedy for many, many years, and I don't plan on stopping.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.

I certainly tried to talk about less complex things, but I've had to accept that it's just not what I do. That isn't to say that my shows are depressing - they aren't. At least, I hope they aren't! The problem I have with stories about happy things is that they don't require any skill from a comic - they just repeat the details verbatim.

At the end of the day, stand-up comedy is like acting when the audience are the other characters that I'm acting with.