Mike Birbiglia Quotes

I used to think I was a little unstable, and then I met every girl I've ever dated.

Saturday night is perfect for writers because other people have "plans.

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

The key to eating healthy is not eating any food that has a TV commercial.

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.'

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

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.

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!!"

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?"

The one thing you're most reluctant to tell. That's where the comedy is.

I try to think up material that might apply to the subjects they are studying. How many mitochondria does it take to power a cell? One. Because mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. Not ready for prime time, that one.

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.

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

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.

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 can always tell who went to catholic school, because they're atheists.

There is no such thing as #1 in art.

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!'

I've read that Steven Wright's style was born out of genuine nervousness.

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."

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 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."

Our fear leads us to say no all the time.

You've got to remember that improvisers are writers and actors and directors all simultaneously. That's what's happening in real time because you're writing on your feet, and you are acting out the words and you are directing what the staging is. You're deciding what staging is.

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!"

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.

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

I think if anything, the fact that it's popular right now makes me go: "Well, I guess I'm going to start doing something else then in the next few years." I dunno, it almost feels hackneyed at this point. To start a premise by saying, "I did this awkward thing." But then again, awkwardness and feeling alienated are always going to be a part of comedy. Alienation, I suppose, can't be hackneyed because it will always exist.

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.

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.

I don't drink a lot. My family calls me an old soul. And my friends call me a pussy.

I will say what I aspire to is a consistency in making films, to direct something every couple of years.

I've been selfish over the years, and other people who have made it have too, but I can only speak for myself.

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.

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.

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

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 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 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.

Sometimes when my fans come up to me, they think it's going to be entertaining, like I'm going to tell jokes or do bits, and then instead of that I end up talking about really mundane things with my fans, and then they're kind of like, "This is boring. I want to go talk to somebody else." I think I bore my fans to death by over-talking to them.

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

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

Sometimes when I do a joke and it doesn't get a lot of laughs, it kind of feels like I'm doing jazz. That's kinda cool because jazz is cool, but sometimes jazz sucks ... Maybe I'm the Kenny G of comedy.

I think the reason why I'm so alluring to networks is because on the surface I'm like a quintessential relatable, boring white guy. A great many sitcoms have been anchored by a boring white guy, so I feel like what they want to mine from me are my more generic qualities.

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.

Art is socialism but life is capitalism.

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.

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.

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.

I always try to attack the most honest issues I can in my comedy.