Comedian Growth Quotes

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

I often think it can often be very difficult for comedians to revisit the same gag. I think Russell's a bit more than a comedian.

In order to be the best comic, you have to perform in a wide diversity of rooms.

One percent of all comics ever reach the level of a Chris Rock or a Jerry Seinfeld. When audiences come to the underground rooms, they have a chance to watch the process that happens along the way - and see the comedians grow.

I'm definitely guilty of thinking something is funny but thinking the audience won't. Then three years later I will finally try it and it'll kill them. I got to give them more credit.

Stand-up was interesting to me at the beginning, because I was trying to parody it. My early stand-up was really Andy Kaufman-esque, and then I became the very thing I was making fun of.

I started when Chris Rock did 'Bigger & Blacker.' I used to watch that before I went onstage as inspiration to get hype, but I noticed I started taking on his cadence and talking like him. I was also doing the New York-style comedy thing, which was angry and annoyed. I was creating a persona instead of trying to embrace my own.

The great thing about comedy is that the longer you've been alive, the more you have to talk about and the better you get. I've got some miles and some road savviness that some other guys don't have.

Every day I do one or two podcasts that 92 percent of people never will hear. I'm constantly producing, constantly making jokes for Twitter. There's a lot of pressure there. On the flip side, I think having to produce like that makes you a better comedian.

August is the time when I can feel myself getting stronger as a comedian. I'm at the height of my powers come September.

I felt that, as time went on, an audience gets to know you and in a weird way, you kind of feel like you get to know the audience a little bit. When I'm doing stand-up gigs now, I feel like I'm doing gigs in front of people I know. I think that's the result of doing late-night shows for so long.

I dare say that if most comedians today, the gifted ones, were to sit down and write, they'd learn more about their craft. But what happens is they get out there before they learn what their viewpoint is, if any.

When I started doing standup when I was 17, I was talking about being Indian and specifically ethnic jokes. Straightforward stuff that was fairly ignorant that I knew would get the laugh. It wasn't flipping stereotypes; it was using them.

Racial humor was about 35% of my act when I first started. But I realized that it was a crutch. What brought it home was when another comedian said to me, 'If you changed color tomorrow, you wouldn't have any material.' He meant it as a put-down, but I took it as a challenge.

I think for comedians, acting is their natural progression. It's all about progression.

If the 'Chappelle's Show' had stayed on, I seriously doubt I would have developed this fast as a stand-up comedian. I probably would never have taken stand-up comedy really seriously.