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" 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
Like
Hands
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" I almost can't even put to words how happy I am that I got married. "
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" 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. "
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" It sounds so nerdy and pathetic, but what I always do on Sunday afternoon is bring my inbox down to zero, which is so sad. But e-mail has become like homework for adults. I'll have 141 messages from people who will be offended if I don't write back. "
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" 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. "
Mike Birbiglia
Time
Long
Long Time
" 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
" 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. "
Mike Birbiglia
Comedy
Acting
You
" I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody. "
Mike Birbiglia
Broadway
Bullets
Pretty
" I love Broadway shows. "
Mike Birbiglia
Shows
Love
I Love
" When I started out, I really struggled as a comic because no one knew who I was, and sometimes I was telling stories, so it would take a while for people to get on board for things. "
Mike Birbiglia
People
Started
Out
" 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 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
" 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
" Nothing that you want ever is what you think it is. "
Mike Birbiglia
Ever
You
Want
" Essentially, retweets are like laughs. "
Mike Birbiglia
Essentially
Laughs
Like
" 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
" Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences. "
Mike Birbiglia
Out
Front
Everything
" Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody. "
Mike Birbiglia
Different
Comedy
Plus
" I feel like everyone wants to make a movie that they feel passionate about watching. "
Mike Birbiglia
Everyone
Passionate
Feel
" 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. "
Mike Birbiglia
You
Audience
People
" 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 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
Me
Money
Week
" Film is so immersive. "
Mike Birbiglia
Film
" 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
" It's interesting how sleepwalking in a certain way becomes an accumulation of your outside stimuli that's actually there and what's happening in your brain. "
Mike Birbiglia
Way
Brain
Interesting
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
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Way
Feel
I Am
" 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
" 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