Nick Kroll Quotes

You can't be a proper comic unless you've been out on stage and felt the fear.

I wasn't properly performing in Canada. I was just starting out, and when everyone starts out, they're terrible. I'm sure there are some Kellyanne Conway videos of me just really dying on a stage.

I think it's great training for any comedian to start on cows. Because with cows, you expect them to be bored and just stare at you blankly. And that's exactly what you'll get at a comedy club. If you can toughen up with a cow audience, then you'll never be worried with a human audience.

Being a comedian is an incredible thing, but it can be scary sometimes.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

I never wanted to be road comic.

I had some friends that tried it down there, and I went to a couple of open mics, and I just kind of got this... this sick urge to try it instead of just watching it.

After I got my first laugh on stage, I was hooked.

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

I don't have any horror stories of trying to start as a comedian and eating it constantly on stage.

There are so many really good comedians, and I would never be as good as they are. It's not my calling.

It's a really nice way to cut your teeth, doing live shows. It's like going to the gym because you do have to think fast. You are constantly under the threat of people not laughing. Instead of getting hit, people could just not laugh, so you really are trying to mine quickly for the funniest thing you could say in that moment.

I had a moment where I was onstage once... As a comedian, you just think, 'Be funny as possible all the time - like, funny at all costs - jokes, jokes, jokes.' That's how my mentality was.

If I tried to do comedy for the rest of my career, I would not be very successful.

I don't like the pressure to try to tell the best jokes. I'm not good at jokes.

I started comedy in 2006. I didn't even think it was a thing I could do.

People often tell me that they have no idea how I can do standup. The idea of trying to make a large group of strangers laugh is, for many, absolutely petrifying - and it is - but there are ways of gradually developing the material that can ease the fear.

I haven't been offstage for more than two days since I started doing comedy.

Doing stand-up is not normal. People fear public speaking above all other things, and I am no different.

Before I started doing standup, I knew that I had what it takes to develop an act. I went down to clubs with not many people there, and I just worked on it, man. A lot of my friends are comedians, so that part had a lot of encouragement, even though the shows were very caveman-like.

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'm no Jerry Seinfeld. I wasn't raised with some backyard with a creek and trees and all that.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it's my entity; it's my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

Comedians have to write to survive because you don't get cast for your beauty.

I love comedies. I love watching them. I think I've always been afraid of being on them a little bit.