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" I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can't say that about their fans. "
Mike Birbiglia
Funny
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" After I perform 'My Girlfriend's Boyfriend,' it takes a lot out of me emotionally; and, at the end of it, I feel like I know the audience and the audience knows me. It's this weird unspoken bond that we'll kind of always have with each other. "
Mike Birbiglia
Bond
Know
Feel
" I got out of school in 2000, and I always wanted to be on 'This American Life,' since I first started telling stories. And that, I mean, that show is a little bit of a fortress. It's really hard to get stuff on that show. "
Mike Birbiglia
Always
American
Life
" Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.' "
Mike Birbiglia
Conversation
You
Me
" What I always studied in screenwriting from my mentor John Glavin was that the most interesting characters are characters with shades of gray. "
Mike Birbiglia
Interesting
Most
Mentor
" You get to the end of something, you're laughing, you're like, 'That's funny, and that's funny,' and then you get to the end, and the credits come down, and you're like, 'That's it?! That's the whole thing?! You had me here for that?!' I just don't want to do that. "
Mike Birbiglia
Me
Want
You
" I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else. "
Mike Birbiglia
Uncomfortable
Sometimes
Night
" My wife and I always comment that our lives are relatively mundane. She's a writer as well, I'm a writer, we spend most of our time writing, and kind of going to yoga in Brooklyn. "
Mike Birbiglia
Kind
Writing
Wife
" Sometimes I'll go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of groceries as though I knew how to cook, which I don't, and as though I was going to be home for the next six days, which I won't. "
Mike Birbiglia
Go
Sometimes
Cook
" Starbucks is the last public space with chairs. It's a shower for homeless people. And it's a place you can write all day. The baristas don't glare at you. They don't even look at you. "
Mike Birbiglia
Place
People
You
" Sometimes I take this women's exercise class called Core Fusion at a place called Exhale. I shouldn't say it's a women's class. There's maybe two men. "
Mike Birbiglia
Women
Class
Exercise
" You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24. "
Mike Birbiglia
Comedians
Hate
You
" I'm a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in 'Once' there are the musicians that hang out together. "
Mike Birbiglia
Same
Hang
Musicians
" Every sleep doctor I've talked to said it was an urban legend that you shouldn't wake up a sleepwalker. All that will happen is that you will get condescended to. "
Mike Birbiglia
Legend
Up
Wake Up
" I've become good friends with Lena Dunham, and the thing I had in common with Lena when I was 24 is I was as ambitious as she was. What we don't have in common is that I was not as talented. My voice was not as clearly defined. "
Mike Birbiglia
Voice
Good Friends
Good
" I just like, when you look at people who have long careers in film, they're able to make films that are far away from themselves, because they're metaphorical. It creates more opportunities, I think. "
Mike Birbiglia
Opportunities
Look
People
" I actually wasn't really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, 'You're fat. You're gay. I'm outta here!' I was always more kind of awkward and introspective. "
Mike Birbiglia
Fat
You
Kind
" People come to my shows on purpose as opposed to coming to a 'comedy show.' Which was always my goal. "
Mike Birbiglia
Goal
People
Purpose
" It's a difficult line to tread, where sometimes you go to the movies or you watch someone do publicity for movies or TV shows, and they do all the jokes that are good in the promotion of it, and you see the movie, and you're like, 'I kind of get it already. I'm not that psyched about it.' "
Mike Birbiglia
Movies
Someone
You
" Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is. "
Mike Birbiglia
Ever
You
Want
" Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody. "
Mike Birbiglia
Different
Comedy
Plus
" You don't really see sleepwalking in films that often. It's weird; I feel like in popular culture we have the perception of sitcom, arms-in-front-of-your-body sleepwalking, and then maybe Olive Oil and Popeye when she sleepwalks through the construction site. But it's all very cartoonish, in some cases literally. "
Mike Birbiglia
Perception
Construction
Culture
" I was very much a late bloomer. That's not to say that girls didn't express interest in me from time to time, but I just, I did not know how to respond to that. "
Mike Birbiglia
Know
Me
Late
" I am diagnosed with what's called 'REM behavior disorder.' As far as the disorder goes, there's no cure, but it's going pretty well as far as these things go. I see a sleep doctor, take medication, etc. "
Mike Birbiglia
See
I Am
Behavior
" Louis C.K. directs his show, which is very much like a series of short films. "
Mike Birbiglia
Show
Short Films
Much
" In real life, I first started sleep walking in high school because that was when this concept of getting into college first appeared. I had this moment of, 'Oh! This is going to affect the rest of my life.' "
Mike Birbiglia
Life
College
Moment
" I am intimidating no one in America. No one feels like they are below me in any way. They feel like they are absolutely either at or above my level and 100-percent comfortable talking to me. "
Mike Birbiglia
Way
Feel
I Am
" I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear. "
Mike Birbiglia
Feel
Marriage
Fear
" Someone gave me a piece of advice once, my first manager Lucien Hold. He said, 'If you do stand-up about your own life, no one can steal it.' I always thought that was the best piece of advice. "
Mike Birbiglia
Best
Life
Me
" As artists, we'd all love to not be commercial - to not sell out to the full extent that we are able. But you do what you have to do to pay New York rent and continue to do what you feel strongly about. "
Mike Birbiglia
New York
You
Rent
" Pain is funnier than love. "
Mike Birbiglia
Than
Pain
Love