[sam] Kinison, when he started out, he'd come to Canada when I was first starting, and he'd always [bomb].
I don't care how good a song is - if it holds back the storyline, stalls the plot, your audience will reject it.
I've been so lonely trying to become a photographer. If I'd known that before, I don't know if I had the courage to do it again. You get to a point where you feel that you have something that is your own. And if you don't find an audience for it, you are going to burst.
I do not want my new works to be generated in a market or audience of any kind.
There was no audience for my books. The Indians didn't regard me as an Indian and North Americans couldn't conceive of me of a North American writer, not being white and brought up on wheat germ. My fiction got lost.
It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.
There isn't a comedian in the world that hasn't bombed.
If I played a vamp I would be rejected by the audience outright.
Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences.
There is no safe zone now: whether it's commercial or experimental films, the audience wants content. Otherwise, they reject the film.
I actually performed at an orthodox Jewish wedding, where the men were separated from the women, but they both came together to not enjoy what I was talking about.
I got booed a lot of places.
In the beginning, we'd walk off stage and burst into tears, 'cause we were getting bottles thrown at us, and boys were spitting all over us.
I got heckled off stage in Western Australia at a music festival once.
The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.
In film, you can't go into analytical explorations because the audience will reject that.
I do not write for an audience.
There are so many low points with stand-up. You are perpetually humiliated, so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't have any dignity left to lose. An audience can't hurt you anymore when you've been completely dismantled.
I bombed in front of 5,000 people. Anybody that's ever stood in front of 5,000 people that don't like them can tell you, it's an energy associated with that. You don't want to feel that. You ask yourself, 'Do you really really want to do this?'
I did my first set at a talent show, and I couldn't finish because the judges didn't like my jokes. They were 'offensive.'
Once you go outside your natural audience, there are tons of people that don't like you.
