Ken Jeong Quotes

I came out to L.A. in '78 to be a musician. I didn't get into comedy until the mid-Eighties.

I don't drive. I live in L.A., but I take the bus. I know, I'm weird!

After graduation, I was floundering in L.A., doing stand-up comedy and working in a shoe store in the Valley.

I started doing my own animated movies when I was in ninth grade; that's when I got the filmmaking bug. When I was about 16, I started writing jokes for doing stand up, and then I was 19 and started doing stand up.

At first I moved from Sydney to Melbourne, because most of the comedy was shot in Melbourne, and then from Melbourne to Los Angeles - and you have to sacrifice stuff.

'Taxi' made a big difference because it got me into comedy.

I did stand-up comedy for a long time in San Francisco, and then I was like, 'You know what? I'm going to move to Los Angeles and try and make it!'

I did a lot of standup from ages 19 to 24 but then stopped to focus on sketch with Broken Lizard.

I got into standup because I wanted to be an actor, and then I ended up loving standup for the next eleven years.

I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.

One of the first jokes I wrote was this nail salon bit that ended up blowing up on YouTube. That's kind of what propelled me into standup.

I am a career physician. I practiced for 32 years before I began my career as a public servant.

I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.

I wanted to be a doctor once upon a time, but it turns out you've got to study, and that wasn't going to happen. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had trouble holding jobs because they want you to be on time. That wasn't going to work.

So I watched the Pink Panther last night, and so I'm trying desperately to be funny, and then it's just not working out so good... I wonder if maybe I could've been a comedian or something like that, or maybe I could've been a doctor, then I wouldn't have to make anyone laugh.

I wanted to come to Chicago. I also wanted to do "Saturday Night Live." And then I got to a place where I didn't want to do those things anymore.For the sketch comedy thing, I got cast on "MADtv," and that will kill any man's desire to do comedy.

If you're going to be a good standup, or a successful standup, or a standup who can work for money, you have to eliminate the possibility of dying quickly.

I wouldn't mind having another shot at doing comedy, but I'm not sure that's the way I'd want to go.

I had this fantasy of becoming a neurosurgeon. You know, the normal Jewish boy fantasy, but I wanted to be a neurosurgeon for some reason. So I started in this unpleasant way. I was an assistant to the coroner, opening up corpses, taking the innards out, opening skulls, taking the brains out.

I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where people are in cars.

I'm living in L.A., which is hard to get around. I live way out in the suburbs, it's hard for me to get to town. You get five minutes here, then you gotta drive a half hour to the next one. New York was so much easier for standup because you could hit five clubs in a night. Just jump in a cab, pop. Boom, boom, boom. And you could walk to some of 'em, and work out stuff on the way. You can really get some more traction out there. You could work new material easier out there, I thought.

I used to be an insult comic, and I didn't end up liking the way that I felt about myself.

I've been doing Nixon pretty much my whole professional life. I was in this comedy group called the Credibility Gap in Los Angeles when he was president. I was doing Nixon on the radio, and when we did live shows I physicalized him - if that's a word - for the first time. And then I did a Nixon sketch on a very short-lived NBC show called Sunday Best.

I wanted to get a job as a gynecologist, but I couldn't find an opening.

If you ask me right now, you've seen the last of Mind of Mencia. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. I would rather walk away and do more movies, comedy and even some dramatic roles.