Tony Rock Quotes

Playing live is closer to theatre, although when you're up there on your own, it's quite scary and revealing because you're playing your own songs. It's like a one man show that you've written yourself.

It's not until you develop your own voice, your own persona onstage that you become your own comic, who you really are.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

I stumbled on a joke idea and style that worked, the audience went with it and, from that moment on, I was hooked. It's an amazing feeling.

The hardest thing in the world to depict dramatically is stand-up.

Stand-up was my entree into the entertainment world. I didn't have to act out somebody else's words. I could just stand there with a microphone, and nobody would interrupt me. It's the most narcissistic thing you could probably do.

Comedians' first ten minutes usually stay with them the first several years of their career. It's their mission statement. Their disclaimer that lets people know who they are. Or were. It's also a good time to make fun of your name if you have a funny or strange one.

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.

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

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.

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.

A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.

I'm not the kind of person who ever thought, 'Oh, a one-woman show - bring it on!'

I definitely enjoyed being in front of an audience, making people laugh, and telling stories, so when I realized I could do all three at the same time, that was it.

In 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.

When they first start doing comedy, new comics or even people that have only been doing it three or four years, they're doing an impersonation of a stand-up. This is what I think a stand-up should sound like.

Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.

When I'm on stage, that's a job. It's acting, it's faking, just making fun of yourself, telling bad jokes - I'm pretty good in this - dancing, just to entertain.

I know what I want to talk about, but I don't really know what's funny about a joke until I perform it in front of an audience.

The idea that standup is a thing with defined boundaries is kind of ludicrous.

The moment for me, thinking I might actually want to do comedy professionally, was when I did public speaking at school. I found out I was good at getting up in front of class. In the fifth grade, I did a speech on comedy.

I knew when I got out of high school that I was going to be a stand-up comic.

I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.

People who have heard of me have heard of me mostly through presenting and asked, 'Why have you gone into comedy?'

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.