Dane Cook Quotes

I've been booed on stages. I'm a little bit tougher than to walk off a stage because someone says something ugly.

I was the class clown, but I was a reluctant class clown because I was always and still am somewhat embarrassed by performing. I have terrible stage fright, and I don't like being in front of people.

It feels like the more I'm out there in the public eye, the more criticism I get. You need to have confidence - that's what it takes to walk out there and sing a song in front of a huge group of people.

When you're onstage and you know you're bombing, that's very, very scary. Because you know you gotta keep going - you're bombing, but you can't stop. And you know that half an hour from now, you're still gonna be bombing. It takes a thick skin.

You have to develop a very thick skin.

I don't think one should be comfortable standing on a stage with people applauding and laughing at every stupid thing you say.

I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.

I can be extremely vulnerable. People are tough on me because they think I can handle it.

Stand-up. It's the only place I'm comfortable.

Getting up in front of the toughest crowds, you know, playing pubs in South Armagh - where people didn't necessarily even know what stand-up comedy was - you had to force yourself to do it. It went against every instinct in your body, but you did it anyway.

You know, I have a very thick skin.

You've got to have thick skin in this business.

I feel like you've gotta be able to get up every night in front of a live audience. Whether it's 10 people or 50 people or a hundred people, whether you're in a rock band or doing the comedy circuit.

In fact, I learned on the Bill Maher show that I can survive the audience booing at me, the guests hating me, Sarah Silverman mocking me, that I can survive. That's a lesson right there for people on the right.

Comedy is frightening at first because you're opening yourself up. When it's just you and people hate it, you're like, "Oh God. Do they hate me?"

I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it.

It's a sick thing, right: people are afraid of public speaking. I do public speaking, except my public speaking involves the audience only having one type of emotion and one type of reaction. If they have anything other than laughter, it's a failure. That's an absurd thing for a human to try to seek. The main thing to realize is that whatever I say, it's my truth and I believe in it, and if I don't get a laugh off that, then it's not working.

Occasionally I’ll be sitting somewhere and I’ll be listening to someone perhaps not saying the kindest things about me. And I’ll look down at my hand and I’ll sort of pinch my skin to make sure it still has the requisite thickness I know Eleanor Roosevelt expects me to have.

I don't expect people to feel sorry for me. My teammates get more upset about the criticism and booing than I do.

If a woman wants to succeed in the public arena, she needs to grow skin as thick as the hide of a rhinoceros. I have certainly, as you can tell, have had to learn how to do that, and there's a lot of good moisturizers I can tell you about if you're interested. The second thing is to learn how to take criticism seriously but not personally.

People sometimes say how standup is so hard, and I always tell them that it's hard at the beginning.

My first open mic, I drank a full pitcher of beer by myself. I wasn't afraid of being in front of people as much as, Is this funny?

The more vile the thing that's said about me, the less it affects me. It doesn't bother me at all.

The epithets of imbeciles have never bothered me.

I put myself out there; it's part of my job, and I get it: people will attack me. At first I was thrown off, but now I have a pretty thick skin about it.