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" 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. "

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" I couldn't recommend more that people put themselves in a situation where they can see a lot of work that they admire, and for free. "

Mike Birbiglia

Situation

Free

Work

" Sometimes, occasionally, people will make out in the audience, completely not aware that there's a human being onstage just yards away from them, who can see them. Sometimes people think that you're on television while you're onstage, so you're not even a person. "

" Making a film is beyond exciting. It's so exciting, it's exhausting. "

" 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. "

" I feel like being a door person was like college in a sense. I could watch comedy on a professional level seven nights a week without paying, and they would pay me a nominal amount of money to be there. "

Mike Birbiglia

Money

Week

" I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody. I'm a comedian and a writer. "

Mike Birbiglia

Nobody

Mad

" Once you start writing something obsessively, it's almost like someone has to rip it from your hands in order for you to put it down. "

Mike Birbiglia

Start

Hands

" Directing a movie is a little bit like being back in student government and putting on the homecoming dance. You're like, 'You put up the streamers, and you hire the DJ, and you get the punch bowl.' Some people are just like, 'This dance sucks.' And you're like, 'No no, this dance is awesome!' You have to be really positive. "

" In terms of comedy, there was a Seinfeldian era of comedy that I love but got played out. Seinfeld was great, but then after him it was people acting like Seinfeld and making observations that we felt like we'd kind of heard before, and then you're seeing Seinfeldian comedy in commercials. Suddenly everything is observational funniness. "

" The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd better have something to say. "

" 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. "

" I would say that I love pizza so much that sometimes I eat pizza while I'm eating pizza. Like, I'm so content with myself with how it's going that I'm like, 'I should do this more,' not realizing that the mouth is full. I'm just cramming pizza into my mouth. "

" There are comedians who focus on everything that is external. They focus on politics and the news, what's going on in that city and that night. "

" I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear. "

" I like 'Donnie Darko;' it's a cool take on dreams and sleep. "

" When I go to bed at night, I wear a sleeping bag. And for a long time, I wore mittens so that I couldn't open the sleeping bag. "

" Nobody knows the life of the working comic. "

" The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought. "

" Jokes are so personal, and they bring us together in so many ways. "

Mike Birbiglia

Together

Bring

" 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. "

" Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance. "

" I think because I've been working in front of audiences for so many years, I'm able to take in the input, good or bad, and just say, 'This is the part I agree with that you're saying, and these are the parts I don't agree with.' "

" When I was in high school I saw Steven Wright, a brilliant one-liner comedian, and I thought: 'That's what I should do; I should write one-liners.' And I did. My first album is mostly one-liners. "

" I love Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. "

" I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset. "

" You can't go to medical school and come out and be like, 'I'm going to be a dog catcher.' That would be so pointless. "

Mike Birbiglia

You

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is. "

" You know the expression, 'You're only as sick as your secrets?' I believe that, and I think I try to have my work live by that to a degree. "