Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" 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. "

Mike Birbiglia

You

People

Government

" Shooting a movie isn't good for a sleep disorder. "

" My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. "

Mike Birbiglia

War

Through

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

" I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody. "

" 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. "

" I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding. "

" 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. "

" I'd much rather try and fail than talk about trying. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Want

You

" I'm going to end up making twenty films if people let me. "

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

" 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 sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that's how people find their favorite bands and comedians. "

" When you're in high school, you can't even imagine the concept of what the rest of your life even means. "

" Once you know how to make a movie, you can't not make a movie. "

" The thing with film is that it's so wide-reaching compared to comedy. When I release my comedy special, half a million people will see it. If I release a movie, five to ten million people will see it. "

" When I was in college, I wanted to write for 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien,' and I was an intern there. "

" 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

Care

" 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. "

" With a monologue, you can be unendingly elliptical. "

Mike Birbiglia

You

Monologue

" 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

Late

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

" 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

" 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 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. "

" Prose is all about embellishing and describing. "