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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Mike Birbiglia

Focus

Who

Politics

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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

Wake Up

" 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. "

" 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

" I love Broadway shows. "

" 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. "

" Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams. "

" Sometimes you'll have a heckler who's actually attempting to be supportive, but you don't realize it. Their way of expressing it is kind of confusing. "

" 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. "

" Sometimes my fans are too nice. "

" 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. "

" Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.' "

" I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness. "

" I feel like people have more in common than the news reports. People getting along doesn't sell very well in the news. I find that to be deeply depressing. "

Mike Birbiglia

Feel

People

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

" 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. "

" I never looked at my parents' marriage or really anyone who had been married more than 30 years and thought, 'I gotta get me some of that!' "

" One of my favourite movies is 'Annie Hall' because it's about the silver lining of the break-up. "

" Fortunately, I don't talk about politics on stage. "

" You have to be delusional to be a comedian. "

" 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. "

" I think your tendency when you play yourself is to accentuate something about you that you think is the funny thing about you. "

" Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences. "

" I always try to attack the most honest issues I can in my comedy. "

" 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. "

" I was raised Catholic, and then I kind of wandered away somewhere in high-school. I never got confirmed, which is a big deal. "

" I'm generally so disoriented during the week about what I'm doing and where I am - I travel a lot - that when I'm home on a Sunday, I typically try to sleep in as much as I can. "