J. B. Smoove Quotes

No one set that I ever do is the same. I mean, if I go to a comedy club, and I perform three sets, all three sets are different because anything can happen in between sets.

I don't do the same show on any two nights.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.

Some people only work to recorded music because it's so reliable and exactly the same every time, which is exactly why I don't.

Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it's dangerous.

Each show is a very honest portrayal of how I'm feeling that night. It can go off in any direction. The show is different every night, and that makes it much more exciting. Every evening is unique.

What I love about improv so much is that we are all discovering it at roughly the same time. The performers are maybe, what, a half second ahead of the audience? There's very little lag time. I think of a thing, I say it, then the audience is laughing and it all happened in a second.

I like a performance, a live performance, so I like little mistakes because that's what makes perfect - the mistakes.

A lot of guys come out, and they do the exact same thing, are in the exact same mood, and have the exact same entrance every night, I really just make up a lot of crap as I go along.

The best thing about theatre is that every time we get onstage, the show is new.

Also I can come up with new bits - people yell stuff out and it's a new subject or a subject that I've been thinking about that I haven't done onstage yet and I'll just run with it.

There are jokes I know I want to tell, and there's sort of a rough order, but usually I try to change it up every show, to improvise and talk with the audience. I think when you tell jokes, if you're not careful, you can end up telling the whole list of jokes and then that's it. And that can get a little boring.

Man, you can come see me six or seven times in a row and you'll never see the same show twice, because I don't like to be robotic onstage. I like to perform for that particular audience.

When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.

It's hard to keep a play alive moment-to-moment, you know? But there's another part of it that I really love, which is that you never know.

I never know what I'm going to say as I walk up to the microphone. I try to be in the moment. I try to go deeper into myself. I discover things on stage that I don't discover off stage about me.

You don't always do the same things you've done the night before. That's what makes playing live so interesting as opposed to being in the studio.

I come from the world of improv; I love any show or any vehicle that gives me an opportunity to be in the moment.

I started doing improv when I was 8 years old, so it's always been in my life. I would feel naked without it.

When I do an hour-and-a-half show, if I don't improvise 20 minutes worth of new material each night, I feel I've let myself down.

Usually, if I think something is really funny, I'm not gonna test it. I'll just test it when I'm onstage.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

I love acting with kids, cause they're great acting partners. They're totally present. Even when they're acting, they're still available and you can crack them up or something weird will happen and they'll go with it.

Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.

You can't plan everything - if I did a performance exactly how I rehearsed it, it would be so boring.