Mike Birbiglia Quotes

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.

When I'm taking the subway to my improv shows I will be writing in my notebook different actions that I see people doing on the train whether it's eating yogurt or looking at where their stop is, or tripping or holding a baby. It's not preparing scenes and ideas as much as it is stoking your brain to think observantly. Just to place observations in your head, so that they are available somewhere.

I drank the Kool-Aid of being a network star. Once it didn't happen, I realized it wasn't the best version of my comedy.

You can express love by calling out the truth out of the situation as opposed to dancing around it.

Sometimes, when you want to be in a place so badly, you'll do anything.

All techniques of comedy are valid and interesting to me.

...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.

I struggled with that notion early in my career. 'I know this is funny but nobody is laughing.' This thought occurred for years.

I just don't give off a great first impression.

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.

Fortunately, I don't talk about politics on stage.

Some people come up to me and say "You know, in Italy, it's pronounced Ber-beel-lia" And I say "Well, here in America, you're annoying..."

I read recently that women still make 30% less than men in the workplace. Which I think is fine, cause if we didn't make 30% more, you guys would marry each other.

My writing process is very feedback based - I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting... and then rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. Chris Gethard and I have been on the road a lot together. When we get on the bus at night, we talk about the jokes that didn't work and the joke possibilities that could work. I think this is a little different from other writers.

Awkwardness and feeling alienated are always going to be a part of comedy.

I'm a big fan of pastries the size of a baby that contain enough calories for a year. That seems like an effective use of time.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

I think Mitch Hedberg is one of the great comedians of the past 20 years.

Failure's hard. There's no way around. Bombing on stage never feels great. You feel judged, you feel alone. But then when your performance works, it's transcendent.

I think sometimes you don't understand how to convey an idea, depending on the moment you're living in.

I shouldn't say bad things about the illiterate, though..I should write it. That way they won't find out.

My friends drink everywhere. They even drink at the laundromat. I tried drinking at the laundromat, and I thought I was in a submarine, navigating the Sea of White Panties with my Spanish-speaking crew. I was like, "Mrs. Sanchez, set the coordinates to Permanent Press! Give me some quarters and another drink! This place is starting to look like a laundromat."

I went to a funeral recently, and they handed out Kleenex before the funeral. Which I thought was cocky.

What I really need is a woman who loves me for my money but doesn't understand math.

I was an altar boy as a kid. And the answer is no.

I'm a compulsive everything.

I take the subway four times a day, or close to it. I just love the subway! My grandfather worked as an electrician when they were digging the subway.

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.

I thought, Hey, maybe these people shouldn't be making up holidays to drink more. Maybe if they drank less they might be able to title their newspaper articles more specifically. For example, I would title this last article "Drunk Driver Hits Drunk Walker Drunkety-Drunk I'm So Drunk."

I got an E-Trade account. Turns out I can turn $1,000 into $420 in less than a week. Sure, I had to pay some fees.

Comedy unites, it doesn't divide!

I was a screenwriting major in college, and really wanted to do that after I graduated, but there are no job listings for that, as we all know. I had many classmates that made it in the business, but stand-up comedy was my way in, and my first film 'Sleepwalk with Me' was based on those autobiographical experiences.

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!!"

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.'

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.

Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?

I think our culture views success as visibility, being seen as being successful. Whereas I've learned that success is rooted in helping and connecting to other people, and knowing where you can contribute. I've kind of spent my thirties doing that, because in my twenties I was seeking any kind of success.

When I was a kid I would write songs, little plays, and poetry in school. If you're an adult and you're a poet, it's all about love and pain, but if you're a kid it's, "Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?"

I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But theyre also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset.

It was a hard name having growing up as a child. Some kids would call me names like "Birbiglebug" and "Birbibliography" and "Faggot". Some were more clever than others.

You need to know what doesn't work to know what works. It's especially true in improv and stand-up.

The key is to do what you love.

I feel like people have more in common than the news reports.

To succeed in comedy you ultimately have to put in the hours and get lucky - The amount of people who are able to break through is so small a fraction of the amount of people trying.

When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.