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.

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

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 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.

At first, I wasn’t really keen on the idea of me being on stage having to sing in front of people.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.

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

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 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.

Stand-up is hard.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

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.

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 my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

My goal is to make everyone and anyone a Kevin Hart fan.

I write all of my own speeches.

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.

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

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

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 had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

I love to sing and I really love to write, but in terms of being onstage, I’m not that comfortable, which I think is sort of clear.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

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 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.

I don’t think there is a single social issue I haven’t spoken on.

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?

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

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.‘

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

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.

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.

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

I spoke to a million in one service, in Korea, in Seoul. And that was the largest audience I ever have had.

The first two games for Churchill, I was so jittery that I didn’t know what to do. I was running more but didn’t know what to do. I’ve no bones accepting the fact that I didn’t know what was happening in the game.

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.

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.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

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.

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

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.

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

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

I’ve been known to preach.

I write all my sermons.

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.

I’ve been doing comedy longer than I haven’t been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on ‚The Tonight Show.‘ There’s truly nothing like it; it’s intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

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

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.

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.

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

In oratory the will must predominate.

Take my wife… Please!