I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.
So I kept it to myself. Then some of my classmates started to come down to the comedy club, taking a girl out, and they started finding out I was a stand-up comedian.
A comedian has to live in his head. All this comedy comes from a lonely place. When you're surrounded by an entourage, you're not living in your head.
Black comics, they only watch Black comedians. You're a comedian; you're not just a Black comedian. You're a comedian. I try to get that through to everybody.
Though part of me had always wanted to be a comedian, another part of me had always wanted to be Bryant Gumbel or Dan Rather.
I've told Michael Jackson jokes. If you got really technical, you could say those are jokes about child molestation. You could, if you got technical. A lot of this is just selective outrage because honestly, the audience are the ones that tell us that something shouldn't be spoken. The audience lets us know. And I've never, in my almost 30 years of being a comedian, seen a comedian continue to tell a joke that the audience doesn't respond to. I've never seen it.
I like the tradition of the Oscars. I like that some of the greatest comedians ever have hosted the show.
Nobody really wants to be a stand-up, they want to get on TV.
Comedians tend to find a comfort zone and stay there and do lamer versions of themselves for the rest of their career.
Standup comedians are attracted to one another because of their faults. So we're all kind of messed up in the same way, and once I was around a group of people that saw the world in a different way, it's like this is where I need to be.
You just got to be really logical when you're a comedian - to a fault. Like a lawyer's got to believe in the law.
I try to stay with it and I try to stay in contact with comedians and just keep comedians in my life 'cause comedians are their own species. If you get away from them, especially as a comedian, I think it's dangerous.
Before I was a comedian, I thought the coolest thing that would happen to me was being a teenager... Boy, was I wrong!
I think anybody in front of a crowd is a comedian.
To be a comedian: Make peace with the fact that you will never be as funny as a baby falling over.
I'm not interested in being one of those comedians who wants to look good and be this 'cool' funny person. I don't care how weird or ugly I look.
When comedians get successful, the fans that they have aren't the fans they would hang out with. I don't have that problem.
Being comedian outside of performing, you're someone who's analyzing life, and thinking about it, and observing so much. In my opinion, it can make you feel sort of on the outside looking in.
When young comedians ask me for advice that's the one thing I always say is if they're improvisers I'm like do improv, don't make that your sole thing. And at the end of the day when you do your best work you also just kinda, by definition flush it down the toilet and never do it again.
I'm not a comedian. I'm what you call a good, old-fashioned working actor who has had delusions of grandeur for my entire career and has known what I want to do.
I'm more of a comedian. I wouldn't mind being on SNL (Saturday Night Live). I think that would be cool.
Whoever calls and asks me to do stuff and obviously, with having your own TV show, people want you to get involved. They know you're a stand-up comedian so they're always looking for somebody funny to host an event.
A lot of amazing comedians that I've worked with just really follow their instincts and you can't really teach someone comedic timing. And you just kind of have it.
I’m a ridiculous person. If you take anything any comedian says seriously, then you’re stupid.
I didn't become a comedian to work this hard.
