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" 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
Me
Week
Wife
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" 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. "
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" 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.' "
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" Ultimately, jokes are this really special thing that we can all share. It's exciting to have basically a thousand people in a room together that can laugh at the same time, but I think of it almost as, like, a religious experience. "
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" 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. "
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" 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.' "
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" Film is so immersive. "
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" I've found, being in Los Angeles, it's like living in a live-action Planet Hollywood. "
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" 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. "
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" My dad goes through war novels like I go through boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. "
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" 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. "
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" Nobody knows the life of the working comic. "
Mike Birbiglia
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" As a comedian, you want people to like you. That's part of why you're there in the first place: You have this unquenchable need to be liked, and then when you divert from that and take a chance at doing something that has moments of fierce unlikeability, you can hit some real low points. "
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Moments
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" It's a difficult line to tread, where sometimes you go to the movies or you watch someone do publicity for movies or TV shows, and they do all the jokes that are good in the promotion of it, and you see the movie, and you're like, 'I kind of get it already. I'm not that psyched about it.' "
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" People come to my shows on purpose as opposed to coming to a 'comedy show.' Which was always my goal. "
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Goal
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Purpose
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Situation
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" Over the years, I managed to develop this comedy career, went from opening act to headliner at comedy clubs, to playing concert halls, and had an off-Broadway show with 'Sleepwalk With Me.' "
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Dance
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