When I was younger and did a stand-up gig, it would take me two weeks to recover. Sometimes I’d get so panicked that I would stutter.

I write all of my own speeches.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

I can move any crowd.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.

Chris Rock does the political thing really well, but that never worked for me.

No matter how much you rehearse on that stage, once you add 30,000 screaming people with flashing cameras into the equation, it’s pretty intense.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

When Caroline Kennedy managed to say ‚you know‘ more than 200 times in an interview with the New York ‚Daily News,‘ and on 130 occasions while talking to ‚The New York Times‘ during her uninspired attempt to become a hereditary senator, she proved, among other things, that she was (a) middle-aged and (b) middle class.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

I have been – I have spoken in Bir Zeit a number of times.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

I write all my sermons.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me – to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That’s normally how I perform. That’s how I am.

When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it’s always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

I’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

When I speak at my local church, which I try to do 35 to 40 times a year, I try in every lesson to take the Old Testament text or New Testament text and apply them to what is happening to me or how that applies to the audience that I’m teaching in a modern, fast-changing, technological world. I use headlines, interfaith and that sort of thing.

I did stand-up, weird and ignorant stuff about my career – anything for a laugh.

They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

I realised a little bit to my astonishment that I can give a lecture for a thousand people, and there will be this tumultuous applause, so, you know, I have the feeling well, it can’t be all that bad.

When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the road somewhere every day, and I’d get back to the hotel, and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

For me, it’s a purity thing about the joke itself. It’s a test of a joke whether or not you do it completely clean and it works. If it does, then that’s a legitimate item you have there. For me, it’s nothing to do with finding those words offensive. It’s just not what I’m in search of. Do it clean, and you are really earning that laugh.

Stand-up is my baby.

At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values, spreading a message of harmony, is the most important thing.

People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I’ll give you an example; I don’t read what’s handed to me. People say, ‚Here, here’s your speech, or here’s an idea for a speech.‘ They’re changed. Trust me.

I’ve been known to preach.

When I’m nervous, I stutter, and I had to keep stopping and starting.

I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I’m saying, and I track it.

Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don’t want to meet them.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

Stand-up is hard.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

Being a stand-up is my mission in life; it’s my passion. My ongoing goal is to simply be funny, on my own, in front of a roomful of strangers.