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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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Mike Birbiglia
Age: 46
Born: 1978
Born: June 20
Actor
Comedian
Executive Producer
Film Director
Screenwriter
Stand-Up Comedian
Really
Living
Make
Means
Time
Jobs
Comedian
Also
York
Problem
City
Take
Cities
Mean
Stage
Writing
Less

More quotes by Mike Birbiglia

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I think Mitch Hedberg is one of the great comedians of the past 20 years.
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Falling in love is a completely transcendent experience. It's like eating pizza-flavored ice cream
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness.
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I'm a whitebread cracker. That's my favorite white person slur: whitebread. The other day, someone came up to me and said, What's up, whitebread? And I was like, That's not even an insult. That's just my race plus a food. I can do that, too, black bean soup! Stay out of this, Asian chicken platter!
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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'm a compulsive everything.
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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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Fortunately, I don't talk about politics on stage.
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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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
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The key is to do what you love.
Mike Birbiglia
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Saturday night is perfect for writers because other people have plans.
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.
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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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...And so we go and I meet his parents. And it's a very strange thing meeting your girlfriend's boyfriend's parents for the first time. Part of you is angry for obvious reasons and part of you still wants to make a good impression. On a side note, they seemed in perfect health.
Mike Birbiglia
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I try to think up material that might apply to the subjects they are studying. How many mitochondria does it take to power a cell? One. Because mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. Not ready for prime time, that one.
Mike Birbiglia