213+ (BEST) Hilarious John Mulaney Quotes About Life
John Mulaney Biography
John Mulaney is an American comedian, actor, author, and producer. He was born on October 26, 1983, in Chicago and has been in the comedy business since 2000. He is the son of George Mulaney and Sheila Mulaney.
In 2000, he made his debut on independent film. In 2002, he landed his first stand-up performance on Comedy Central. In 2007, he created and produced two independent films.
In 2008, he starred as a fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom called “Mulaney”. In 2015, he signed a deal with Netflix to produce and star in two new stand-up specials.
In 2016, he reprised his role as ‘Mulaney’ in a Hulu series on the same name.
In 2017, he produced a new stand-up special, “Kid Gorgeous at Radio City”.
In 2018, he starred as ‘Nick’ in the biopic of Richard Pryor called “Breakthrough”.
In the same year, he was awarded with two Emmy Awards and received nominations for his work on Netflix.
The comedian John Mulaney is also a best-selling author. His first book, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, was published in 2007.
His second, The Top Part, was published in 2015 and is also a best seller. John has a weekly podcast, called Come to Papa. He has also starred as the semi-fictional version of himself on the FOX sitcom Mulaney
John Mulaney Quotes
You have the moral backbone of a chocolate éclair. -John Mulaney
I like when things are crazy. Something good comes out of exhaustion. -John Mulaney
My dad was a guy who would never talk about his day at all. He’d just go drink a couple of beers and have a good time. It was hard for me to figure out what that meant. -John Mulaney
I’m not trying to be the smartest person in the room. I’m just trying to be the most interesting in it.-John Mulaney
You tell people you are different, but that’s not true because there are no differences.-John Mulaney
I’m not the most talented person in the world, but I’m trying to be.
My dad left when I was 18 months old. And my dad was a police officer.-John Mulaney
There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about where I could have been if my parents had stayed together.-John Mulaney
You remember being 12 when you’re like, ‘No one looks at me or I’ll kill myself.’-John Mulaney
I grew up in a very rural town in Connecticut. At times it was like living in a zoo.-John Mulaney
I always feel like people should expose themselves more.-John Mulaney
The thing I hate about New York is that everyone is so cool and hip. Everyone is into everything, but nothing.-John Mulaney
If you’re lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you have to figure out how to use it using every bit of the way that you can. Otherwise, you’re going to be doing menial labor.-John Mulaney
When I was a kid, I was really into the idea of being an actor. But then I thought about what it would take for me to be successful.-John Mulaney
My dad used to tell me stories about the time he dressed up as Santa Claus and tried to sell Christmas trees on the street. And he had been institutionalized at least five different times.-John Mulaney
You’re like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, ‘It’s tomorrow now.’ Get out of here with your technicalities. Just because you’re accurate doesn’t mean you’re interesting.-John Mulaney
When people see you on stage, they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s exactly what I would have said.’ I go to the dentist’s office and the dentist is like, ‘You are my ideal patient.’-John Mulaney
I always feel like there should be an app that you can download where you get your voice analyzed based on how much time it takes for them to respond to a text.-John Mulaney
If it’s something very, very funny but possibly controversial, if it’s truly funny, then it’s worth doing. Things aren’t worth doing for the sake of being controversial.-John Mulaney
I’m not a very big fan of television shows. I just don’t like being told what to do.-John Mulaney
I feel like every time you see one of those fake commercials on the air with me in it, it is a big let-down.-John Mulaney
To be invisible, you have to be really funny.-John Mulaney
It’s important to remember that life is a joke and that outlook grants a lot of perspective, but I don’t think comedy should change and become political due to other things. It should just laugh at that cosmic joke that life is all the time.-John Mulaney
I don’t think that you should be seeking perfection. I think you should just have as many jokes as possible.-John Mulaney
If you want to be a comedian, it helps if you have a really good sense of humor.-John Mulaney
One thing I generally find myself hating about New York is that everyone is so cool and hip, and everything is funny, but nothing feels real.-John Mulaney
That’s the thing about being successful in comedy. You’re like, ‘Oh, now I can do whatever I want,’ but then you start to realize that there are some things that you should have done when you were young and new to it. Now they’re completely outside the realm.-John Mulaney
If you listen to people at parties talking about politics, most of the time they don’t know what they’re talking about.-John Mulaney
Space is fun. It is a lot less dangerous if we start getting into it more. It’s just a lot of potential.-John Mulaney
I think you should just put the phone down and have conversations with people. And you don’t need to be surrounded by people who are like, ‘How was your day? How was your work?’-John Mulaney
If I see something in a magazine that makes me laugh out loud, I buy it.-John Mulaney
It should never feel like someone is writing it for you. That’s the biggest pet peeve. And it happens only a few times during your life, but when you feel like someone is writing for you, that ruins everything.-John Mulaney
The three rules of comedy are 1) Learn your craft and practice 2) Don’t take yourself too seriously and 3) Never apologize for what you do.-John Mulaney
One of the things I always try to do is make sure that I’m not upsetting myself too much or being too defensive. I do think that comedy is a little bit about taking risks and being willing to upset yourself.-John Mulaney
The most important thing in comedy is that you have to trust your instincts. It’s what’s going to make any comedy work: if it makes you laugh, it might work for an audience.-John Mulaney
It’s a very lonely feeling when nobody in the entire room is laughing-John Mulaney
Comedy should be more like a party than anything else. You’re not supposed to be sitting there scratching your head.-John Mulaney
I think everyone has a comedian soulmate. Someone who has the same sense of humor about life and taking things for granted.-John Mulaney
I think it’s all about being honest with yourself and following your instincts, and just doing what you feel.-John Mulaney
It all comes down to your instinct, really.-John Mulaney
I wish I could go tell 12-year-old me like I don’t worry that you just fainted in front of all the girls, one day you’ll be able to make this into an episode of TV.-John Mulaney
I think the greatest compliment is when somebody says to me, ‘I like what you’re doing on stage. I really appreciate what you do and I don’t know how you do it because it’s so hard. But I really like it so I can watch it. So that makes me feel good about myself.-John Mulaney
Billy Martin was my comedy hero-John Mulaney
Why do people shush animals? They just go ‘Shhh, hey, shhh.’ They’ve never spoken.-John Mulaney
I view myself as a comic who happens to be a writer, not a writer who happens to be a comic.-John Mulaney
I know it’s weird right now because the thing that everybody loves is mean spirited comedy-John Mulaney
I have never had the experience of being at something called The Bagel Store and ordering the potato salad.-John Mulaney
My vibe is like, hey you could probably pour soup in my lap and I’ll apologize to you.-John Mulaney
I always say I wish I could show more of my stand-up on my show because I think people are like ‘well this is not very good,’-John Mulaney
Early in my career I would book shows and sometimes wouldn’t even know if anyone would come or not.-John Mulaney
I remember going to the airport with my dad for one of the first times. We went into a gift shop and he was like-John Mulaney
Now, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but I’ve been keeping my ears open and it seems like everyone everywhere is super mad about everything all the time.-John Mulaney
13-year-olds are the meanest people in the world. They terrify me to this because 8th graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way. They will get to the thing that you don’t like about you.-John Mulaney
I think comedy is always changing. And they’re trying to get new voices and new people in the door, but it’s sort of like a class system.-John Mulaney
I don’t like to watch anybody on TV who’s just being themselves because I feel like I can do that.-John Mulaney
If you want to get good at anything you have to spend 10,000 hours at it.-John Mulaney
You can’t always see both sides of the story. Eventually, you have to pick a side and stick with it. No more equivocating. You have to commit.-John Mulaney
I’m not much of a romantic, but I do find the idea of love interesting. Where it comes from. And I like that we’re so desperate for it.-John Mulaney
I do think women are funny, and I’ve had moments in my life when I was less than sensitive to the plight of women in general.-John Mulaney
When you see a band that you don’t know who they are, you should just start heckling them immediately.-John Mulaney
College was like a four-year game show called ‘Do my friends hate me or do I just need to go to sleep?’-John Mulaney
The thing that makes me the most nervous is just thinking about how I feel when I’m in front of an audience.-John Mulaney
That’s another reason why I don’t like doing TV-John Mulaney
We started chanting, McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s! And my dad pulled into the drive thru, and we started cheering and then he ordered one black coffee for himself and kept driving.-John Mulaney
I wanted to be a comedian ever since I was 11 when I got really good at playing this thing called The Wizard of Id. It was sort of like Dungeons and Dragons mixed with an electronic organ.-John Mulaney
My dad used to tell me stories about the time he dressed up as Santa Claus and tried to sell Christmas trees on the street. And he had been institutionalized at least five different times.-John Mulaney
I don’t look older, I just look worse.-John Mulaney
What people have to realize is that I don’t necessarily try to offend people, and I understand that’s the kind of thing you need to do, but all I can talk about is what I want to talk about.-John Mulaney
When people say ‘You don’t have a sense of humor,’ it does pain me. Because that means they think you are a robot.-John Mulaney
I think that anything I write is funny. That’s like the definition of your sense of humor.-John Mulaney
If it’s not funny to you, it’s not funny.-John Mulaney
I think that people were just doing a lot of drugs and felt sorry for themselves so they had this kind of dark sensibility, but then they got sober and realized that did not work for them.-John Mulaney
I don’t think I’m afraid to tell topics that other people aren’t ready to talk about. The way that I look at it is the things that make me really upset, I try not to make jokes about them. I just say why they bother me.-John Mulaney
Being a comedian has really helped me in a lot of ways. It makes you feel crazy because the hours are so weird, and when you’re not on stage, you start to get lonely. And also, you’re kind of a freak.-John Mulaney
If you can find one thing that makes you happy, and decide to follow that, then I think your life will be pretty good.-John Mulaney
You have to be willing to fail at a lot before you succeed.-John Mulaney
My parents were always very encouraging about whatever I wanted to do, as long as I gave it the old college try-John Mulaney
“I paid $120,000 for someone to tell me to go read Jane Austen and then I didn’t.”-John Mulaney
I don’t know why I’m always quoting the writer Jane Austen. I think she’s great.-John Mulaney
You are your parents’ worst nightmare. Your voice is their worst nightmare on tape.-John Mulaney
You have to be your own best friend, and if you’re not then you never will be.-John Mulaney
If you can’t make people laugh in a public place, then they don’t matter. You don’t matter.-John Mulaney
I think it’s what makes you a comedian. What is it? You have to be able to laugh at yourself.-John Mulaney
I think any relationship worth having should be based on honesty, and I don’t think there is anything that you need to lie about to keep the peace.-John Mulaney
One of the things that makes me crazy is when people try and make things about them. Like ‘Oh, I don’t get this’ or ‘What does this have to do with me?’-John Mulaney
If I’m not up for something, then it would be nice if people wouldn’t try to talk me into it.-John Mulaney
Whatever you think your best quality is, that’s what you should just start talking about forever.-John Mulaney
What I like most about stand-up is that there are no mistakes. There is no writers’ room and they edit you before you take the stage. They take your jokes and try to improve them.-John Mulaney
I’ve been reading Jane Austen since I was 11, and that’s definitely a sign of childhood genius.-John Mulaney
Come on, let’s do it!-John Mulaney
The most important thing in comedy is that you have to trust your instincts. You have to trust that this is good.-John Mulaney
The most important thing in comedy is that you have to trust your instincts. You have to trust that this is good.-John Mulaney
I think comedy has gotten so far away from what it used to be about, and I think people are trying too hard. I think doing a show about politics feels fake because it’s like, ‘Oh, here we are talking about Trump and Russia and the election.’-John Mulaney
I think comedy has gotten so far away from what it used to be about, and I think people are trying too hard. I think doing a show about politics feels fake because it’s like, ‘Oh, here we are talking about Trump and Russia and the election.’-John Mulaney
My parents were always very encouraging about whatever I wanted to do, as long as I gave it the old college try.-John Mulaney
I think that’s what makes me different. I like the idea of things.-John Mulaney
It’s a funny thing how much you can get from a smile or a laugh.-John Mulaney
If it’s not funny to you, it’s not funny.-John Mulaney
I read this piece where he said he’d rather be at home doing what he’s doing than go out and have some fancy dinner somewhere.-John Mulaney
You won’t be funny if you don’t do it and try. I think people are strange for not trying.-John Mulaney
People like to talk about how hard they work in comedy, but I don’t know, I guess if you’re looking for a job you’re going to work every day. But I’m doing something that I love.-John Mulaney
Nobody considers how hard it is to be happy all the time.-John Mulaney
People are so scared of being alone. It’s totally fine to be alone. Like, I’m by myself right now and it’s fine.-John Mulaney
When you have a job that you love, you can do it really well even when you’re tired or sick or sad. But if it’s just a job, then your body and your heart aren’t really into it.-John Mulaney
I think anyone can do anything if they just stick to it and give it the old college try.-John Mulaney
I would always get in trouble for having the wrong shoes on or something, and then I’d go home and my parents wouldn’t even care.-John Mulaney
My parents were always really supportive of me being a comedian, but they didn’t know what comedy was. They would see me on TV and say, ‘Oh, John is funny!’-John Mulaney
My parents always wanted me to go to college. But I didn’t have a clear sense that college was for me. And I didn’t know why I should go.-John Mulaney
I think my parents are proud of what I’ve accomplished because they thought it was a weird thing for me to do when I started doing stand-up.-John Mulaney
My parents are so proud of me. They are so proud!-John Mulaney
My mom is like my biggest fan. She goes to all of my shows and shows everybody pictures of me as a baby.-John Mulaney
My parents didn’t believe in medical marijuana, but they did believe in using other forms of medication to help you get through your day.-John Mulaney
Johnny Depp used to be my favorite actor, but then he went crazy and people said that I looked like him. I was like, “Really? That’s weird.”-John Mulaney
I think that even if you’re a little bit young, people are still going to think you’re an adult.-John Mulaney
I haven’t been on a show with Jay Leno for a long time. I think we could be pals if we ever met.-John Mulaney
I’m not sure what I would be doing if I wasn’t doing stand-up.-John Mulaney
I think that all of the success has just been really overwhelming for me. I know that it’s part of my job, and it is very cool to get paid to do what you love.-John Mulaney
People go through stages where they just don’t want to take a shower or drink a glass of water. It doesn’t mean that you’re strange or crazy.-John Mulaney
It was very weird. I was in grade school, and I had a friend named Kristin who was really depressed. And she killed herself, and they found her locked in a closet at her house.-John Mulaney
When I saw the photo of the kid who hacked Sony, he looked a lot like me. We actually just ended up being neighbors.-John Mulaney
Growing up, I thought comedians were always rich and famous. And then I found out that most of them have day jobs and aren’t rich at all.-John Mulaney
I just hope to be able to keep doing stand-up. That seems like it is a very happy thing to be able to do.-John Mulaney
It was a little bit hard for me to buy things when I was growing up, honestly.-John Mulaney
