Bill Burr Quotes

I worked at comedy clubs - if I can use the term 'work' - for several years. I middled at one point. I never made it; I was never a headliner. I never made enough time to write enough good material, in my opinion.

Over the years, I managed to develop this comedy career, went from opening act to headliner at comedy clubs, to playing concert halls, and had an off-Broadway show with 'Sleepwalk With Me.'

From 1987 to 1992, I was on the road for 40 weeks a year playing comedy clubs, and that was during the 'comedy boom.'

I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.

You know, I'm playing the Mirage in Vegas, the main room... About 5 percent of all comics end up as the main headliner on the Vegas Strip, so that's a big deal for me. Getting to do my stand-up the way I have this summer is really what I've dreamed of since I was about 10 years old.

I've been doing stand-up since I was 19. There have been times I've had to step away because of my schedule, but now I'm able to go out and do theaters and not smoky little bars.

I started going to the open mics every day in 2003. You make the comics laugh, they get you work, and you build up your reputation. It was a slow process.

As a stand-up comic, you have to do the road.

I had always been able to make people laugh in school, so I really developed that and worked on it and I got pretty good at it and it turned into a career.

I've been a comedian since I was fourteen. But I've never really been a CEO.

It used to be if you wanted to be a comedian, you used to just do sets. You'd go up three times a night, just get better, and then some people would see you and you'd do 'The Tonight Show,' and then boom, you're a comedian.

Now, as a comic, if you're vaguely amusing you can go straight into TV, then you play the O2 and then everyone's sick of you.

I worked with so many comedians who became big names - so many, I can't even remember some of their names. John Byner, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers. Shecky Green at the MGM. When I started my career, my first hotel in Las Vegas was at the old Flamingo. My opening act was Bill Cosby.

I think I probably would have gone into stand-up.

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

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.

I've played every comedy club and every theatre across the country for the last 25 years and seen a lot of audience members from different ethnic persuasions.

Like everybody, I started out doing 'bringer' shows - the kind where if you show up with a certain number of people, you get to perform. Sometimes I would actually pay strangers off the street to come in and see my set.

Continuing to do stand-up is always a challenge because the audiences and the environments in which you work very often differ.

I've not really been angling to be a comedian. I knew comics and I loved them and I loved being funny, but I didn't understand the whole concept of becoming one. My first couple of times on stage, I was like, "This is what I'm doing for sure." I was so excited.

I always loved comedy, but it never seemed like something that I could do professionally.

I started out in stand-up when I was 18, which is really masochistic, and I did it really till I started going in movies. I did it for about three years out in LA.

I LOVE THE COMEDY CLUBS AND THE CLOSENESS OF THE CROWD. HOWEVER THE MORE YA DO THE BIG ROOMS THEY START TO BECOME YOUR HOME AS WELL AND YOU ADJUST TO THE SURROUNDINGS. I LOVE THEM BOTH. I MISS THE CLUBS BUT THATS WHAT YA WORK FOR TO DO THE BIG ROOMS!

I've been trying to bust into the comedy business my whole life. It's hard in Hollywood to do different things. I know this. It's a struggle.

I would love, obviously, just to keep doing stand-up. That's the constant. That's the thing that I'm going to do for the rest of my life, but also I would like a TV show at some point.