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" 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

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" Prose is all about embellishing and describing. "

" How many people do you know who have thrown up on the Scrambler or a carnival ride? A lot of people, is the answer. "

Mike Birbiglia

Ride

People

" Sometimes my fans are too nice. "

" 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. "

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

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

" Media is so weird; everything is so accessible now. It used to be this thing where, if you did something on 'This American Life,' this predates me, but when David Sedaris did it, for example, it would just play, people who heard it heard it, and then the book would come out a year later, and people would be like, 'Ahh, I kind of remember that.' "

Mike Birbiglia

American

Life

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

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

" When I met my wife, I was a working comic, so the first week we went out, she saw me perform, and it was very clear what I do. "

Mike Birbiglia

Week

Wife

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

Mike Birbiglia

Together

Bring

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" I think that my regrets mostly have to do with my relationship with my ex-girlfriend. Every once in a while, you get those flashback memories of conversations you had with your exes, and you just, like, wince when you're walking down the street. Something occurs to you, 'Oh, no, I said that.' "

" First time films are hard. Even with some of the greatest directors, you look back at their first film, and you are just going, 'That movie is kind of bad.' "

" My last name has the word 'big' in it. It seems like a logical progression that if you shed away the Bir and the lia, I'll just be Big. "

Mike Birbiglia

Name

Away

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" If you tried to sell Mike Birbiglia as a concept, no one would buy it. "

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

Mike Birbiglia

You

Monologue

" 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. "

" Pain is funnier than love. "

" Sometimes I'll go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of groceries as though I knew how to cook, which I don't, and as though I was going to be home for the next six days, which I won't. "

Mike Birbiglia

Sometimes

Cook