They really cut to the chase in the urologist's examination room, and I tried to laugh. If this office were a movie, it would have been rated R. Mike Birbiglia More Quotes by Mike Birbiglia More Quotes From Mike Birbiglia There are so many people who are clever. There are 8000 people at Princeton who are more clever than the three of us at this table. BUT, we have the ability to give something that they don't have...which is us. Mike Birbiglia clever giving people 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. Mike Birbiglia goal people years Where art and business intersect is a challenging hurdle for a lot of people, reconciling the fact that not everyone is going to make it in the same way. Yeah, you have to be a little selfish, probably. Mike Birbiglia selfish people art 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. Mike Birbiglia college jobs way 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 asking-why spirit want All techniques of comedy are valid and interesting to me. Mike Birbiglia comedy technique interesting 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 honest writing people I struggled with that notion early in my career. 'I know this is funny but nobody is laughing.' This thought occurred for years. Mike Birbiglia careers laughing years I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy. Mike Birbiglia principles together drama When I was in college my improvisation troupe and I did a road trip to Chicago, and went to The Second City to see the classic 'Paradigm Lost' revue - with Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Scott Adsit and Kevin Dorff. It blew my mind, and proved to me you can do sketch comedy like you're doing 'Long Day's Journey into Night.' We could treat it like theater. Mike Birbiglia college journey night 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. Mike Birbiglia humor funny america I was an altar boy as a kid. And the answer is no. Mike Birbiglia humor funny kids 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!" Mike Birbiglia humor race funny I didn't realize how good I was with technology until I met my parents... my dad told me "You're good; you should be a computer programmer." I said, "You're bad... you should be a caveman." Mike Birbiglia dad humor funny I went to a funeral recently, and they handed out Kleenex before the funeral. Which I thought was cocky. Mike Birbiglia cocky humor funny I was made to believe that my life was going to be fixed and it wasn't. I'm still the same loser who had flown to Los Angeles on my sister's frequent flier miles just six days before. Mike Birbiglia humor funny believe 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 humor self-esteem funny I like 'Donnie Darko;' it's a cool take on dreams and sleep. Mike Birbiglia dream sleep Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance. Mike Birbiglia backup dancer musician It had that kind of open-ended fear to it - like that feeling you get when you're driving and you see a cop. And you're not speeding. You don't have drugs. But you're just thinking, I hope he doesn't notice I'm driving. Mike Birbiglia humor funny thinking
