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Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody.

Mike Birbiglia

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Mike Birbiglia
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: June 20
Actor
Comedian
Executive Producer
Film Director
Screenwriter
Stand-Up Comedian
Plus
Tragedy
Comedy
Everybody
Different
Time

More quotes by Mike Birbiglia

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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.
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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...
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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!'
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Eugene Mirman is the Andy Warhol of comedy. People look to him for what's next in comedy, and he emails these people back promptly. The Will to Whatevs put me in a great mood because I was laughing out loud. Alone. That's hard to do.
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I actually love 'Saturday Night Live,' like a sports fan watches their favorite team to see how they're doing. I know the players and the writers, I've known several people on that show for a number of years.
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Life is unfair and improv is a great metaphor of that.
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia
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Sometimes when I do a joke and it doesn't get a lot of laughs, it kind of feels like I'm doing jazz. That's kinda cool because jazz is cool, but sometimes jazz sucks ... Maybe I'm the Kenny G of comedy.
Mike Birbiglia
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I went to the doctor, and they found something in my bladder. And whenever they find something, it's never anything good like, We found something in your bladder AND IT'S SEASON TICKETS TO THE YANKEES!!
Mike Birbiglia
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Awkwardness and feeling alienated are always going to be a part of comedy.
Mike Birbiglia
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Sometimes when my fans come up to me, they think it's going to be entertaining, like I'm going to tell jokes or do bits, and then instead of that I end up talking about really mundane things with my fans, and then they're kind of like, This is boring. I want to go talk to somebody else. I think I bore my fans to death by over-talking to them.
Mike Birbiglia
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I've been selfish over the years, and other people who have made it have too, but I can only speak for myself.
Mike Birbiglia
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The key is to do what you love.
Mike Birbiglia
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I struggled with that notion early in my career. 'I know this is funny but nobody is laughing.' This thought occurred for years.
Mike Birbiglia
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I feel like people have more in common than the news reports.
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia
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Sex and pizza, they say, are similar. When it's good, it's good. When it's bad, you get it on your shirt.
Mike Birbiglia
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I figured out in my thirties it was about 'what can I contribute'? And what I figured out about that is creating something from scratch, and connecting it to people.
Mike Birbiglia
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I'm walking out my door to get like a Snapple, and someone's like 'yo man, you want to buy some heroin?' 'No... got any Snapple?'
Mike Birbiglia
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My writing process is very feedback-based. When I do stand-up, I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting, and then rewrite, rewrite and rewrite.
Mike Birbiglia