Open Mic Nights Quotes

A lot of comedy is really DIY. You're kind of doing it yourself.

I do enjoy them. I get to meet the next generation of comics and help them out. Big comics doing small shows was something that used to happen a lot more back in the day. I wish there was more of that.

Be persistent and just keep going to open mics no matter what, even if just to watch and not perform. You'll find that even at your worst keep your head up because you'll still be better than other people's best.

We always go out looking for live music after our shows.

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 used to go to open mics in New York when I was starting out, and it was mostly just people who wanted an audience to look at them for eight minutes on a stage.

For aspiring comedians? Don't listen to me. Just go on stage and do what you think is funny.

I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up.

I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where I could get on stage. I guess you could get up no matter how bad you were and you didn't have to audition. You just got up. Everything else required an audition and if you auditioned for a TV show, you would stand in line with a hundred other people. But at the clubs, it was okay just to get up, so that's why I started in stand-up.

When I was in college, I would go out, and I would go to these open mic nights at Stitches and Nick's Comedy Stop, so I was going to classes during the day, and then at night, I would be signing up on the lists.

I go to more open mic nights than open mikers.

If you want to be a stand-up comedian or an artist, you move to New York.

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.

My friend gave me a VHS tape of Eddie Murphy's 'Raw.' I watched it so many times, I fell in love with it. I would watch it every day, just picking it apart. And then I started doing open mics around Maryland and D.C.: that's where I'm from. And I haven't stopped since.

Actors, you have to wait for people to give you work, or you have to make your own stuff. But standup, I could just say, 'I want to do standup in 30 minutes,' and I can go do standup. Or I could just say, 'I want to do standup in a few weeks in this city.'

Comedy clubs were something that came to pass in the '80s, but toward the end of that, in the early '90s, people started doing comedy again in alternative spaces.

In the stand-up comedy top, there's room for everyone - if you're good, there's room for everyone. You'll put on your own show - no one casts you. You cast your own show as a stand-up comedian. When you get good at stand-up comedy you book a theater and if people show up, people show up. If people don't show up, people don't show up. You don't have a director or a casting agent or anybody saying if you're good enough - the audience will decide.

Stand-up comedy in the end, unlike the rest of the entertainment industry, is a meritocracy. There's a certain level of undeniability you can work toward.

I just started the way most comics start, doing open mic shows around Sacramento and San Francisco, and eventually, I moved to L.A. After about four or five years in L.A., I got the call to join the 'The Daily Show.'

Not all comedy clubs or situations are ideal, especially when you're first coming up and I think that's good for you. Eventually you get to express your real personality.

When you're a young comedian the first thing you want to do is get a laugh.