Quote

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].

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
Spirit
Interrupting
Improvisation
Rule
Asking
Habit

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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I always try to attack the most honest issues I can in my comedy.
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My family isn't really Italian. We're more like Olive Garden Italian.
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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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I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness.
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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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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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Our fear leads us to say no all the time.
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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.
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A girl offered me E at the club. 'Have you ever done E?' 'I watch E.'
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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.
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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!!
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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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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.
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Sometimes, when you want to be in a place so badly, you'll do anything.
Mike Birbiglia
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I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear.
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Falling in love is a completely transcendent experience. It's like eating pizza-flavored ice cream
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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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When I made 'Sleepwalk with Me,' many people asked me if was a novelty thing, a one-off. But this is the goal, I'm just hitting it 12 years after I thought I would.
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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