When I started out, I really struggled as a comic because no one knew who I was, and sometimes I was telling stories, so it would take a while for people to get on board for things. – Mike Birbiglia
I gravitated toward stand-up because there’s no overhead. I mean, literally, there’s no overhead: Often, you’re outdoors performing in front of groups of people. – Mike Birbiglia
Every sleep doctor I’ve talked to said it was an urban legend that you shouldn’t wake up a sleepwalker. All that will happen is that you will get condescended to. – Mike Birbiglia
Creepy people do the things that decent people want to do, but have decided are not a great idea. – Mike Birbiglia
I got out of school in 2000, and I always wanted to be on ‘This American Life,’ since I first started telling stories. And that, I mean, that show is a little bit of a fortress. It’s really hard to get stuff on that show. – Mike Birbiglia
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. – Mike Birbiglia
My last name has the word ‘big’ in it. It seems like a logical progression that if you shed away the Bir and the lia, I’ll just be Big. – Mike Birbiglia
I sometimes think of not doing Twitter or Facebook anymore, but that’s how people find their favorite bands and comedians. – Mike Birbiglia
Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, ‘So today I’m driving the bus.’ And everybody’s like, ‘What?’ And you’re like, ‘I’m gonna drive the bus.’ And they’re like, ‘But you don’t know how to drive the bus.’ – Mike Birbiglia
My first car was, as depicted in ‘Sleepwalk with Me,’ my mother’s ’92 Volvo station wagon that had 80,000 miles on it, and I had put 40,000 miles on it, so by the time it retired it had 120,000, and I basically killed it. It served me well, and my mechanic was always very angry with me because I just didn’t properly care for it. – Mike Birbiglia
After I perform ‘My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend,’ it takes a lot out of me emotionally; and, at the end of it, I feel like I know the audience and the audience knows me. It’s this weird unspoken bond that we’ll kind of always have with each other. – Mike Birbiglia
If you’re asked something on a movie set and you say ‘I don’t know,’ you lose confidence in every department. What you need to say is ‘I’ll have that for you in five minutes.’ – Mike Birbiglia
I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you’re starting out in comedy, it’s the audience that tells you what’s funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that. – Mike Birbiglia
I actually wasn’t really the class clown growing up. The class clown was always the mean guy who walked up and was like, ‘You’re fat. You’re gay. I’m outta here!’ I was always more kind of awkward and introspective. – Mike Birbiglia
Someone said to me at a party once, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re a comedian? Then how come you’re not funny now?’ And I just wanted to say, ‘Well, I’m just going to take this conversation we’re having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that’s the joke. You’re the joke later.’ – Mike Birbiglia
How many people do you know who have thrown up on the Scrambler or a carnival ride? A lot of people, is the answer. – Mike Birbiglia
Sometimes, occasionally, people will make out in the audience, completely not aware that there’s a human being onstage just yards away from them, who can see them. Sometimes people think that you’re on television while you’re onstage, so you’re not even a person. – Mike Birbiglia
First time films are hard. Even with some of the greatest directors, you look back at their first film, and you are just going, ‘That movie is kind of bad.’ – Mike Birbiglia
When I met my wife, I was a working comic, so the first week we went out, she saw me perform, and it was very clear what I do. – Mike Birbiglia