Mike Birbiglia
My family isn't really Italian. We're more like Olive Garden Italian.Collection: Funny
I feel like we can prove in real time the old trope that comedy is tragedy plus time.Collection: Real
I have this habit of asking 'why do you want to do it?' and then interrupting them to say, 'here's why you want to do it.' Because it's in the 'yes...and' spirit [rule of improvisation].Collection: Asking Why
I feel like people have more in common than the news reports.Collection: People
People getting along doesn't sell very well in the news. I find that to be deeply depressing. I don't even talk about it on stage, because it would take too long to explain.Collection: Depressing
I take the subway four times a day, or close to it. I just love the subway! My grandfather worked as an electrician when they were digging the subway.Collection: Grandfather
Two Drink Mike enjoys dancing and knows a magic trick. Whereas, No Drink Mike enjoys biographies, and has serious opinions on wildlife. And Five Drink Mike... dances with wildlife.Collection: Funny
I performed for the U.S. troops in Guantanamo Bay. And signed autographs for people who've been gone from America for so long they didn't realize that I'm not famous.Collection: Funny
Some people come up to me and say "You know, in Italy, it's pronounced Ber-beel-lia" And I say "Well, here in America, you're annoying..."Collection: Funny
I'm a big fan of pastries the size of a baby that contain enough calories for a year. That seems like an effective use of time.Collection: Funny
So I went to a club the other day, which is timely because my self esteem had been hovering right around 'normal' and I had been meaning to knock it down to negative 1000.Collection: Funny
I was made to believe that my life was going to be fixed and it wasn't. I'm still the same loser who had flown to Los Angeles on my sister's frequent flier miles just six days before.Collection: Funny
The people who are the worst at news, who kind of engage in what I call the World Wrestling of news, have kind of set the bar for where news is.Collection: Wrestling
I like films that are so funny, dramatic and lifelike simultaneously, that you are laughing and cringing simultaneously all throughout the film.Collection: Laughing
I was a screenwriting major in college, and really wanted to do that after I graduated, but there are no job listings for that, as we all know. I had many classmates that made it in the business, but stand-up comedy was my way in, and my first film 'Sleepwalk with Me' was based on those autobiographical experiences.Collection: Jobs
When I'm taking the subway to my improv shows I will be writing in my notebook different actions that I see people doing on the train whether it's eating yogurt or looking at where their stop is, or tripping or holding a baby. It's not preparing scenes and ideas as much as it is stoking your brain to think observantly. Just to place observations in your head, so that they are available somewhere.Collection: Notebook
Life is unfair and improv is a great metaphor of that.Collection: Life Is
You can express love by calling out the truth out of the situation as opposed to dancing around it.Collection: Dancing
I think spending a lot of time with my mom, who's a talker and a storyteller, and my dad, who has kind of a soft-spoken, understated sense of humor, I think that's how I became what I am, which is sort of an understated storyteller.Collection: Mom
They really cut to the chase in the urologist's examination room, and I tried to laugh. If this office were a movie, it would have been rated R.Collection: Funny
I shouldn't say bad things about the illiterate, though..I should write it. That way they won't find out.Collection: Funny
All techniques of comedy are valid and interesting to me.Collection: Interesting
Sex and pizza, they say, are similar. When it's good, it's good. When it's bad, you get it on your shirt.Collection: Sex
It had that kind of open-ended fear to it - like that feeling you get when you're driving and you see a cop. And you're not speeding. You don't have drugs. But you're just thinking, I hope he doesn't notice I'm driving.Collection: Funny
Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?Collection: Sharks
Sometimes, when you want to be in a place so badly, you'll do anything.Collection: Want
My friends drink everywhere. They even drink at the laundromat. I tried drinking at the laundromat, and I thought I was in a submarine, navigating the Sea of White Panties with my Spanish-speaking crew. I was like, "Mrs. Sanchez, set the coordinates to Permanent Press! Give me some quarters and another drink! This place is starting to look like a laundromat."Collection: Funny
I'm a compulsive everything.Collection: Funny
When I was in college my improvisation troupe and I did a road trip to Chicago, and went to The Second City to see the classic 'Paradigm Lost' revue - with Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Scott Adsit and Kevin Dorff. It blew my mind, and proved to me you can do sketch comedy like you're doing 'Long Day's Journey into Night.' We could treat it like theater.Collection: Night
I wrote on my desk wall when I was writing the film...'Art is socialism, but life is capitalism.' That's the hard thing in all of it if you expect to make a living.Collection: Art
Where art and business intersect is a challenging hurdle for a lot of people, reconciling the fact that not everyone is going to make it in the same way. Yeah, you have to be a little selfish, probably.Collection: Art
I can always go back to waiting tables, but I won't be very good at it. I'll never be good at it.Collection: Waiting
My writing process is very feedback based - I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting... and then rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. Chris Gethard and I have been on the road a lot together. When we get on the bus at night, we talk about the jokes that didn't work and the joke possibilities that could work. I think this is a little different from other writers.Collection: Writing
You're always on duty because you're in a constant state of observation. That's one of the challenges of being a comedian. I think one of the other challenges is that, whether we like it or not, it's a profession that requires failure. It doesn't just encourage failure. It requires it because it's all trial and error. You need to know what doesn't work to know what works.Collection: Thinking
Success is fleeting. It may not have to do with you but how your work is received.Collection: Fleeting
The key is to do what you love.Collection: Keys
I think Mitch Hedberg is one of the great comedians of the past 20 years.Collection: Past
I think the cleverness is inadvertent.Collection: Thinking
I think sometimes you don't understand how to convey an idea, depending on the moment you're living in.Collection: Thinking
When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.Collection: Funny
I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But theyre also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset.Collection: Thinking
You need to know what doesn't work to know what works. It's especially true in improv and stand-up.Collection: Needs
My problem with being in New York City is that you really can't make a living as a comedian. You can, but you have to also take writing jobs, which means less stage time.Collection: Jobs