J. B. Smoove Quotes

For me, standup will always be some part of my life, and other things will move around and find their place.

Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can't write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have to entertain myself.

You can wait for things to happen for you or you can make things happen for you.

My wife is a vegetarian. When my wife is with me, I eat vegetarian. When she's not, I eat meat. I'm just being honest.

That's what I am; I'm a drip. You still get hydrated, you still get your nutrients, just a little at a damn time.

I don't like to dabble in anything I don't do well. I don't talk politics.

You can't take everything that is offered to you. I pass on a lot of stuff, because I truly believe that I will shine better if I could do it 200 percent rather than do it 80 percent and make it so-so.

You know what I like? I like classic stuff. I like 'The Andy Griffith Show' - the variety of characters was so amazing to me.

I've done everything. Selling door-to-door fire extinguishers... In bars, I used to repair those machines that have 10 different buttons on them to spray club soda and seltzer.

Man, you can come see me six or seven times in a row and you'll never see the same show twice, because I don't like to be robotic onstage. I like to perform for that particular audience.

I never write jokes, I just try to make myself laugh.

When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.

I've had jokes stolen a thousand times. But if you can do it better than me, you can have it. I've had jokes stolen from me in the club when I'm next on stage. And my brain will start to turn, and the gears will start turning, and I'll go onstage and create a whole new bit.

I love to pitch things that I believe in and products that I love to use.

I most resemble Benjamin Button. I evolve. I attach myself to the heartbeat of whatever is going on at that particular time, or I just chart a new path.

This Italian restaurant I'm at is authentic! When they seat you, they give you a mustache.

You don't want to take the world over with a whole hamper full of dirty clothes. That's the main thing people overlook. And take a shower, take a bath every day.

My life is gardening, cleaning around the house and power washing.

I don't consider myself a stand-up comedian. I consider myself a performer; a comic as opposed to stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedians stand there and do their bits; I break every rule in creation. If there's a rule that can be broken in stand-up, I'll do it.

You gotta improvise in life. You gotta improv if the police pull you over.

If your boss asks you why you're comin' in late, you say it's 'cause you stayed late.

There're rules to being the side chick. Rule number one: you're number two.

Women put guys through tests all the time.

Damn! This flight attendant treating us like we won these first class tickets in a contest.

I think comedy evolves constantly. I reinvent myself all the time. I always find a way to entertain myself because I truly believe you have to entertain yourself in order to relate it the right way to your audience.

I drive a big Dodge truck. I drive American cars.

The ruckus is different experiences you go through throughout your life which builds your ruckus points up - your tolerance. You've got to have a high tolerance for dealing with stuff all the time.

I thought 'Pineapple Express' was hilarious.

I did a club one night - the speakers were old as hell. My jokes were coming out in black and white.

Keep it real by being straight forward. Don't pull no punches on people. It's better to tell somebody than just lollygag around, letting them think they're living their life the right way. Because some people don't know what the hell they're doing, they don't know if they're living the right way or making the right decisions. Some people don't know that.

It's an ongoing joke that a black man is always the first one to get killed in movies.

I talked about everything, man. I've always written material that everyone can laugh at. I talked about growing up. I did a lot of physical comedy. That was my thing. I was a physical comedian. I did anything and everything from running on a treadmill, I can paint a picture on stage of anything.

If I had signed my fourth season of SNL, I wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to do Curb Your Enthusiasm. If my buddy OG Pearson wouldn't have passed away, I wouldn't have been in L.A. for his memorial, and I would've never auditioned for Curb.

Improv relies just as much on listening as it does you delivering dialogue. That's the hard for some people. Some people just concentrate on what they're going to say, and they're not listening. You have to listen in order to see where the other person is going to.

You're trying to make someone wet their pants and you're trying to make somebody crap in their pants. That's the motivation of a comic. Who else has that power?

Mel Gibson is losing it. I don't know how people still supporting this dude's movies like it's all good. That dude is nuts. All you gotta do is shut him down and don't support any of his movies.

When you're on stage performing stand-up, things only happen one time. I've done bits where I improv a joke, and people are dying. The next show, I try to repeat it, I can't do it. Because with the first audience that was our moment. It can't happen the same way again. We were all there: a certain type of people were at that show and we all got it.

Comedians are therapists. People honestly think we're doing it for ourselves. No. If we wanted to do stand-up for ourselves, we would perform in front of a mirror and never go to a club. We are giving this away. Some people are going through so much in their lives, they want to hear something else that's going on in the world and laugh.

I tell people all the time, as I was going through my process of being a comedian or being an actor and a writer at SNL, I tell people that everything you do is all a piece of your puzzle to determine where you’re going to end up at.

I'm street smart. You can't con me. But that's just from living in New York. Now if a guy came from Mississippi somewhere, Ohio somewhere, to New York City for the first time, he don't have the street smarts. You can take him.

You can't let people take advantage of you. Go get that ass.

Live TV has an amazing pace to it. You've got to be able to think quick, make changes last minute, and be funny and fast.

I'm looking to be the next comedy mogul.

I wish black people had a flag they could put into the ground, like when the troops stormed Iwo Jima.

My wife and I have been together for 11 years, and seven of those married. We got married on 07/07/07. We support each other 150 percent. We have fun. We are a modern-day Sonny & Cher. I don't sing. My wife sings. We're so different, but so alike. We got that ying and yang thing going on. You see it, but you don't know how it works.

In my stand-up, I've always been loose. If there's a curtain onstage, I'll use that in my act. If there's a door, I'll use the door. I always like to use everything at my disposal, which makes each show a little different and a little more fun.

If a director brings a guy to their movie who does improv, they've got to let him do what he does - otherwise it's like bringing Michael Jordan to your basketball team and telling him to just pass the ball and don't shoot.

To be a true comic, you have to have a signature move. You ever watch wrestling? And your favorite wrestler has the one move that he always does to finish his opponent off, right? Like when he climbs on the rope, and he always jumps off the top rope and finishes off his opponent - that's what a comic has.