I actually wasn't really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, 'You're fat. You're gay. I'm outta here!' I was always more kind of awkward and introspective.
Jokes are so personal, and they bring us together in so many ways.
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.'
One of my favourite movies is 'Annie Hall' because it's about the silver lining of the break-up.
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.
Sometimes you'll have a heckler who's actually attempting to be supportive, but you don't realize it. Their way of expressing it is kind of confusing.
I love 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen hasn't killed somebody.
Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.'
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.
I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness.
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.
In some sense, Comedy Central has made their audience into comedy connoisseurs.
You know the quickest way to get comedians to hate you? Do Letterman at age 24.
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.
As a comedian, you want people to like you. That's part of why you're there in the first place: You have this unquenchable need to be liked, and then when you divert from that and take a chance at doing something that has moments of fierce unlikeability, you can hit some real low points.
Alienation, I suppose, can't be hackneyed because it will always exist.
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.
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.
Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody.
Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.
