Best 104 quotes of Mike Birbiglia on MyQuotes

A girl offered me E at the club. 'Have you ever done E?' 'I watch E.'

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.

Art is socialism but life is capitalism.

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

Backup dancers are completely respectable. They're the studio musicians of dance.

Bears are simultaneously so graceful and so strong. Bears know who they are, but they often don’t know who you are, which is why they kill you.

Comedy is tragedy plus time, but the time is different for everybody.

Comedy unites, it doesn't divide!

Creepy people do the things that decent people want to do, but have decided are not a great idea.

Does anyone know a word that rhymes with shark?

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.

Elia Kazan. He wrote my favorite book about filmmaking, 'Elia Kazan: On Directing.' There is a thing in the book that I do every time, it's part of my production structure. He said when you're hiring an actor, ask them what draws them to the project, and don't lead them to the answer.

Essentially, retweets are like laughs.

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.

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.

Everyone tries to get you to dance at clubs. They come up to you and say "You gotta dance! you gotta dance!" And then I dance, and they're like, "Not like that!

Falling in love is a completely transcendent experience. It's like eating pizza-flavored ice cream

Gillian [Jacobs] is brilliant, and it was Lena Dunham that recommended her. I didn't see her in the part, but Lena told me that Gillian can do anything. It turned out to be true.

How many people do you know who have thrown up on the Scrambler or a carnival ride? A lot of people, is the answer.

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.

I can always go back to waiting tables, but I won't be very good at it. I'll never be good at it.

I didn't realize how good I was with computers until I met my parents.

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.

I don't smoke a lot of pot anymore. No one wants to hang around a guy who ends every sentence with, "Do you guys hate me?

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.

I feel like everyone wants to make a movie that they feel passionate about watching.

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

I feel like people have more in common than the news reports. People getting along doesn't sell very well in the news. I find that to be deeply depressing. I don't even talk about it on stage, because it would take too long to explain. I'd have to spend an hour on it to get people to understand what I'm saying because it's so instantly polarizing. Because cable news has kind of set up a construct where you're for or against something immediately. So if I said something about it, people would be for or against me immediately. And I don't want that.

I feel like we can prove in real time the old trope that comedy is tragedy plus time.

I feel that marriage can lead to the ultimate rejection and failure and divorce and things we all fear.

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.

I find my fans are really funny people. Most comedians can't say that about their fans.

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.

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].

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

I like 'Donnie Darko;' it's a cool take on dreams and sleep.

I like films that are so funny, dramatic and lifelike simultaneously, that you are laughing and cringing simultaneously all throughout the film.

I love Valentine's Day. When you're a kid everyone gets a Valentine. It's like 'TO TIM, NICE PANTS, LOVE SCOTT'. It's Valentines galore!

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'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'm walking out my door to get like a Snapple, and someone's like 'yo man, you want to buy some heroin?' 'No... got any Snapple?'

I never looked at my parents' marriage or really anyone who had been married more than 30 years and thought, 'I gotta get me some of that!'

In my twenties, I thought it was getting a sitcom. Then I got a sitcom pilot in my early thirties, and realized I didn't want it. It was a rude awakening. When it wasn't picked up, I was crushed, but then in retrospect I've made two films and produced three one-man shows since then. It's the luckiest thing that happened in my life.

In our culture right now, I want to take on this notion of what a singular success means. We think success is one thing, but it's actually a spectrum of where our life takes us.

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 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.

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

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

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.