Howard Finster Quotes

I have lectured at Town Hall N.Y., The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.

I spoke to a million in one service, in Korea, in Seoul. And that was the largest audience I ever have had.

I have taught history on the high school and college levels, and am or have been a lecturer at the Smithsonian, The National Institutes of Health, and numerous colleges and universities, mostly on science fiction and technology subjects.

I went to private school in Manhattan, and at a young age, they made us do public speaking. For some reason, I was good at standing in front of the class and speaking.

I'm just not one of those naturally funny, relaxed actors who enjoy the spotlight and are so good at it.

I make personal appearances around the country. I'm starting a book tour now, and I may be coming to Toronto with the Learning Annex, which I'm doing all through the United States, so that may come up just before Christmas.

I played shows in front of like 25, 50 people, and it's a lot harder to do your thing in front of a crowd that's small.

We've been in front of really big audiences, and people have said there's a couple of hundred thousand people out there, but I've never really noticed.

I've been in front of 60,000 people. Then there are times I've been in front of less than 100. Every single show is going to be something you remember.

I've done bingo halls and tents in front of 10 people with a cow mooing in the background. Doing that and then going to WrestleMania and the Superdome and wrestling in front of 80,000 people is night and day.

A preacher who is too big for a little crowd would be too little for a big crowd.

I started standup at age nineteen. I decided that the only way I was going to try show business as a career was if I could make total strangers laugh.

Sometimes I start off shows by explaining to people that it's just a bunch of stories - I always say 'It's like standup, just less funny.'

I was a part of the largest WrestleMania ever, so I know how to feed off the energy from the crowd in my fights.

You can only absorb when you look back at photos: like when we played Coachella, and there are thousands of people in the audience, and you just walk on stage.

I like stand-up. I've done it since I was a teenager, so it's kind of my first job and first kind of creative way to express myself.

It's one of the reasons I want to do 'Dancing with the Stars': it's a platform to educate.

I started doing improv comedy in 2007, and I think it was that that gave me the confidence to try doing stand-up!

When it came to eliciting a reaction from an audience, especially at the time, I think Ric Flair is the guy who is constantly up there. Especially when you talk about speaking with passion and being able to convey a ton of emotion with his words and his body language.

One thing that I have noticed is that whatever be the function, however poignant or serious, the audience always prefers a speech laced with a bit of humor.

Be it in school, society, or college, I just wanted to be on stage and used to love performing.

I'm the first to poke fun at myself when it comes to the hair. I even ask the audience 'hands up who had big hair in the 80s?'.

I spoke at a number of conventions, like for pharmacists and cosmetologists, so I've done a lot of public speaking in my life.

Just to talk in front of people is scary. And now you gotta learn how to be funny, and now you gotta learn how to make people laugh at what you think is funny. That's not easy.

I've done many rallies and it's been super-charged, highly charged. People are very receptive.