I've actually always wanted to write like a one-person show that was sort of a romantic comedy - a show that was kind of cynical about romance and marriage but ultimately embraced it. Because I feel like comedy is always cynical, inherently, because it's contrarian.
— Mike Birbiglia
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.
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.
The Comedy Central CDs combined with the TV specials are what led to my stuff being traded and passed around, and a lot more people knowing my jokes than I thought.
I'd much rather try and fail than talk about trying.
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.
I never looked at my parents' marriage or really anyone who had been married more than 30 years and thought, 'I gotta get me some of that!'
I have a following, but it's small. I have this level of fame where people spot me in the airport, consistently, but they always think they're the only one who ever has. People will think they win a prize when they recognize me.
With a monologue, you can be unendingly elliptical.
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.
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.
The one thing you're most reluctant to tell. That's where the comedy is.
You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24.
I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film.
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.
I am diagnosed with what's called 'REM behavior disorder.' As far as the disorder goes, there's no cure, but it's going pretty well as far as these things go. I see a sleep doctor, take medication, etc.
I gravitated toward stand-up because there's no overhead. I mean, literally, there's no overhead: Often, you're outdoors performing in front of groups of people.
People come to my shows on purpose as opposed to coming to a 'comedy show.' Which was always my goal.
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.
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.
The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd better have something to say.
You have to be delusional to be a comedian.
Film is so immersive.
If I dream that I'm directing, it's not a film, it's like a commercial for cotton candy, and I've got four feet of cotton candy all around me that I've got to break through, like a brick wall or a fortress.
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.
Every comedian comes to a fork in the road where they have to decide if they're going to make jokes about other people or make jokes about themselves. I chose myself.
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.'
When I moved to New York, I was wide-eyed. I was nice to everyone, which comedians hate.
I grew up in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts and went to college in Washington D.C.
If you're asked something on a movie set and you say 'I don't know,' you lose confidence in every department. What you need to say is 'I'll have that for you in five minutes.'
I just don't give off a great first impression.
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.'
In some sense, Comedy Central has made their audience into comedy connoisseurs.
Shooting a movie isn't good for a sleep disorder.
How many people do you know who have thrown up on the Scrambler or a carnival ride? A lot of people, is the answer.
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.'
Everything about starting out in comedy is pride-swallowing, from handing out fliers to bombing in front of audiences.
Sometimes people say, 'You're the best at digressions.' And that's actually a real compliment to me.
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.
I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset.
I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness.
I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding.
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.
I'm a comedian, and the other comedians are played by comedians, the same way that in 'Once' there are the musicians that hang out together.
The economy of film forces you to make choices.
