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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
Tragedy
Comedy
Everybody
Different
Time
Plus

More quotes by Mike Birbiglia

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You can always tell who went to catholic school, because they're atheists.
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia
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What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.
Mike Birbiglia
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Elia Kazan. He wrote my favorite book about filmmaking, 'Elia Kazan: On Directing.' There is a thing in the book that I do every time, it's part of my production structure. He said when you're hiring an actor, ask them what draws them to the project, and don't lead them to the answer.
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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Someone stole my wallet last week. The guy called me up and he was mad at me. He was like 'you gotta get your finances together. You got no cash, your credit cards are maxed out. You don't even have minutes on your calling card. I had to use my card to call you.'
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
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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Bears are simultaneously so graceful and so strong. Bears know who they are, but they often don’t know who you are, which is why they kill you.
Mike Birbiglia
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I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy.
Mike Birbiglia
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I love pizza so much, I would marry pizza, but it would just be an elaborate ploy to eat her whole family at the reception.
Mike Birbiglia
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I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can't say that about their fans.
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.
Mike Birbiglia
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Fortunately, I don't talk about politics on stage.
Mike Birbiglia
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Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance.
Mike Birbiglia
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A girl offered me E at the club. 'Have you ever done E?' 'I watch E.'
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia
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I'm a compulsive everything.
Mike Birbiglia
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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.
Mike Birbiglia