Vir Das Quotes

Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics.

Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.

It was a dangerous profession I had chosen ... because no one likes a funny kid. In fact, adults are scared silly of them and tend to warn children who act out that they are going to wind up in prison or worse. It is only when you grow up that they pay you vast sums of money to make them laugh.

What crushed my soul was hanging out with bitter, desperate comics backstage. They're a different breed than the bitter yet eager psyches in the wings of an improv theatre. Struggling stand-ups have externalized self-loathing into an art form. They're a hunching, quaking, unshaven lot.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

Stand-up comedy is a sickness. Who wouldn't want a room full of people laughing and screaming at you just because of who you are? Nothing is as good, except maybe having a baby.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

I considered myself a professional comedian because the club would pay me $20.

Some people are funny, and some people are not funny. Many people who are not funny can make a living at it. You don't have to be great to make a living at it. Just like a doctor who doesn't have to be great can still make a living out of it.

I think being successful in comedy is being funny and making jokes - anything beyond that is the icing on the cake.

I used to see Jim [Carrey] in comedy clubs and tell him 'This isn't going to get you anywhere. What you're good at is that nice Jimmy Stewart stuff.' Thank God he never listened.

Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.

I wanted to be a comedian, I wanted people to laugh at what I was saying, not to be staring at my boobs or wearing a skirt and show off my ... I just didn't think that that was the best way to get taken seriously in that world.

Doing comedy is as easy as doing anything else. You're dependent totally on the material.

I'm set up where I make a lot of money doing stand-up, and it's easy.

I support the homies, like Mike Jay and Hannibal Buress. And I listen to Comedy Central Radio in the car.

My intent when I moved to L.A. was to get in good with the comedy clubs and, eventually, try to break into Comedy Central and have my half hour special.

When I first broke out, everyone was like, 'OK, so is this a joke?' They had to wait until I sold out shows before newspapers started writing about it.

My turn on 'Letterman' turned out to be a blast. The audience were delightful, and they lapped up my silly Kiwi humour. Even the big man himself came over to shake my hand after my set.

I met Harrison Ford at Barney's Beanery. And I met Steve Martin at the bar at the Troubador. He said he wanted to be a stand-up comic. I thought that was the worst idea because he was so square, so Orange County.

When Logo offered me my own comedy special, I said, 'Let's make it a double.'

I think, a lot of times when you do a comedy show, people will turn out for a name they know. So, they get excited when they see Patton Oswalt is going to be on the show, but they kind of cross their arms until Patton Oswalt shows up.

It's much harder to have a BBC One sitcom than to have a tour of stand-up.

Well, I started trying stand-up before I joined Google, actually. And then I went broke because that's what happens when you try stand-up comedy. You're actually paying to perform.

I'm not going to say the market is flooded, but there are a lot of people doing comedy.