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" I sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that's how people find their favorite bands and comedians. "
Mike Birbiglia
Find
Doing
Think
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" Pain is funnier than love. "
Mike Birbiglia
Than
Pain
Love
" I feel like everyone wants to make a movie that they feel passionate about watching. "
Mike Birbiglia
Everyone
Passionate
Feel
" I've actually always wanted to write like a one-person show that was sort of a romantic comedy - a show that was kind of cynical about romance and marriage but ultimately embraced it. Because I feel like comedy is always cynical, inherently, because it's contrarian. "
Mike Birbiglia
Marriage
Romantic
Feel
" The economy of film forces you to make choices. "
Mike Birbiglia
Forces
You
Film
" 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
" Alienation, I suppose, can't be hackneyed because it will always exist. "
Mike Birbiglia
Because
Will
Alienation
" 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.' "
Mike Birbiglia
Bad
Think
You
" 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
" My first car was, as depicted in 'Sleepwalk with Me,' my mother's '92 Volvo station wagon that had 80,000 miles on it, and I had put 40,000 miles on it, so by the time it retired it had 120,000, and I basically killed it. It served me well, and my mechanic was always very angry with me because I just didn't properly care for it. "
Mike Birbiglia
Mother
Me
Care
" There's something about small venues that's amazing for developing material. It's almost like you can not only hear people's response, but you can understand it. In bigger venues you lose that, but you gain this sense of camaraderie in the audience. "
Mike Birbiglia
Lose
You
Amazing
" My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. "
Mike Birbiglia
War
Go
Through
" 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. "
Mike Birbiglia
Night
Waiting
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
" I drank the Kool-Aid of being a network star. Once it didn't happen, I realized it wasn't the best version of my comedy. "
Mike Birbiglia
Star
Once
Being
" Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody. "
Mike Birbiglia
Different
Comedy
Plus
" I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college. "
Mike Birbiglia
You
Writing
College
" 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
" I have a following, but it's small. I have this level of fame where people spot me in the airport, consistently, but they always think they're the only one who ever has. People will think they win a prize when they recognize me. "
Mike Birbiglia
Small
People
Airport
" Once you've made your first feature, you know what you can do wrong and how hard it is to shoot a feature. Before you do it, you just don't know how hard it is. Once you've done it, when you're writing a second one, it's almost like you're preparing, and it's almost holding you back. "
Mike Birbiglia
Know
Done
Back
" I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film. "
Mike Birbiglia
Lost
College
Career
" I always try to attack the most honest issues I can in my comedy. "
Mike Birbiglia
Honest
Comedy
Always
" Once you know how to make a movie, you can't not make a movie. "
Mike Birbiglia
How
Know
Make
" The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer. "
Mike Birbiglia
Years
Director
Actor
" I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can't say that about their fans. "
Mike Birbiglia
Funny
Find
Most
" I always have the best story at the party. Anyone telling a story at a party is like, 'No, no, you've got to listen to my story!' I'm like, 'Step aside, everybody. I'm going to blow the doors off this place.' "
Mike Birbiglia
Doors
You
Story
" I think the thing I had to be careful about while writing a book was not to say anything that was revealing about other people that they would be uncomfortable with. I didn't want to make people angry - that's a real risk. "
Mike Birbiglia
Angry
Writing
Think
" I end up talking about really mundane things with my fans, and then they're kind of like, 'This is boring. I want to go talk to somebody else.' I think I bore my fans to death by over-talking to them. "
Mike Birbiglia
Kind
End
Death
" Random people, celebrities of note come to your shows over the years, and I've had some really strange ones. Like the guy from Kiss. Gene Simmons has literally been in the audience at my shows, like, four times. I don't know if he knows me; he's just a big fan of comedy. "
Mike Birbiglia
Comedy
Random
People
" It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa. "
Mike Birbiglia
More
Show
You
" I gravitated toward stand-up because there's no overhead. I mean, literally, there's no overhead: Often, you're outdoors performing in front of groups of people. "
Mike Birbiglia
Outdoors
Because
You