Bo Burnham Quotes:

Quotes are for dumb people who can't think of something intelligent to say on their own.

source: - Twitter post from Jul 20, 2010

Topics: Intelligent, Thinking, People, Dumb People

If I had a dime for every time a homeless guy asked me for change, I'd still say no.

source: - Song: Ex-Girlfriend Racial Humor, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Funny, Guy, Dimes

When life gets you down, make a comforter!

Topics: Comforter

Maybe life on earth could be heaven, doesn't just the thought of it make it worth a try?

source: - Song: From God's Perspective

Topics: Heaven, Trying, Earth

I'm bored way too easily. I'm staring at screens half the day. I need to be overstimulated. And how will that express itself artistically?

Topics: Bored, Needs, Half

Postmodern comedy doesn't work well with very old audiences, because it's making fun of the comedy they enjoy.

Topics: Fun, Comedy, Enjoy

I've found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience.

Topics: Thinking, Generosity, Support

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth.

Topics: Self Worth, Oneness, Existential

I chose to do comedy instead of going to college.

Topics: College, Comedy, Going To College

Women are like puzzles because prior to 1920 neither had the right to vote. Puzzles still don't.

Topics: Funny, Comedy, Vote

If Jesus can walk on water, can he swim on land?

source: - Song: #Deep, 2013

Topics: Jesus, Land, Water

For fifteen cents a day you can feed an African, they eat pennies.

Topics: Funny, Fifteen, Pennies

In the distance, Bo saw a fairy. A fairy so beautiful that he felt proud of being called one in highschool.

Topics: Funny, Beautiful, Distance

What's important is that you stay true to yourself. Because when you enter the real world, the most valuable thing you can bring is all your you-ness. The world doesn't need any more hot chicks or tough guys or smooth talkers - the world needs more you. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Topics: Real, Guy, Important, Valuable Things, Hot Chick

What's a pirate minus the ship? just a creative homeless guy

Topics: Creative, Guy, Pirate

What do you call a kid with no arms and an eyepatch? Names.

source: - Song: Traditional Stand-Up, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Kids, Names, Arms

I saw a giraffe with a short neck That was sad Or a deer

Topics: Deer, Saws, Necks, Giraffe

When I tried to hit puberty I swung and I missed.

Topics: Funny, Comedy, Puberty

I think the love-hate is fundamental. Everyone hates reality television, and everyone's watching it. Everyone hates Facebook, and everyone is on it.

Topics: Hate, Thinking, Reality, Reality Television

There's a certain line between jokes and music and poetry that's a bit blurred in my mind.

Topics: Mind, Lines, Certain

At once I feel that comedy is this amazing sort of transcendent thing, and I'm also open to the fact that maybe it's just an evolutionary hiccup, something that upright apes do in their free time.

Topics: Facts, Hiccups, Apes

Comedy is the one absolutely self-aware art form. Actually, hip-hop's another one, I suppose. Because in your songs you're talking about how good a hip-hop artist you are. It's like a painter painting a panting of himself painting a painting.

Topics: Song, Art, Self, Hip Hop Artist

I just like to write and then perform.

Topics: Writing

Was Einstein's theory good? Relatively.

source: - Song: Bo' Fo' Sho', Album: Bo Fo Sho

Topics: Theory

I remember being superyoung, like nine or ten years old, and thinking, 'Man, I wonder what famous people eat for breakfast. They must have some special kind of cereal!' My mind was so warped by the idea of fame.

Topics: Men, Thinking, Cereal, Thinking Man

I misdirect the audience, so they have no idea where they are or who they're listening to.

Topics: Ideas, Listening, Audience, No Idea

I always wanted to be a comedian and actor, [...] I basically stumbled into the music medium, though. I'm OK, but that's about it. I like to think I'm good enough not to negatively affect the performance.

Topics: Thinking, Comedian, Actors

I think the comedy clubs tend to homogenize the acts a little bit, because they force them to be palatable in way too many environments.

Topics: Thinking, Way, Clubs, Comedy Clubs

At the time of 'Words, Words, Words,' I'm a 19-year-old getting up feeling like he's entitled to do comedy and tell you what he thinks of the world, so that's inherently a little bit ridiculous.

Topics: Thinking, Years, Feelings, Entitled

I worked eight hours a day just so I could get into the college of my dreams and say that I got in - and I never went.

Topics: Dream, College, Eight

I love you just the way you are but you don't see you like I do. You shouldn't try so hard to be perfect. Trust me, perfect should try to be you.

Topics: Love You, Perfect, Trying

Bitches and hoes don't exist because the hoes know Bo's a feminist.

Topics: Hoe, Feminist

For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.

Topics: Levels, Comedy, Unexpected

I don't try to call myself a poet. But I know that my stuff is pretty literal, in that the themes are pretty simple and on the surface.

Topics: Simple, Trying, Stuff

I like to call everyone that I find slightly annoying a 'sociopath.'

Topics: Annoying, Sociopath

When I see someone filming me, I don't usually think, 'No, man, don't put this up online!' I'd think, 'Hey man, you don't get to go to shows very often, put down the camera and enjoy it!' I love going to theatre and to shows so much.

Topics: Men, Thinking, Theatre

I think comedy has a range, with multiple peaks in different areas. It's like trying to compare Beethoven and the Beatles. Sometimes I hear from people, 'I think you try too hard in your comedy.' And that's what I worry about.

Topics: Thinking, Worry, People

I have a pretty good math mind, so I can see patterns, but I don't have a great ear. It's like a tragedy - I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people.

Topics: Math, People, Musical, Good Math, Musical Ability

The average person has one Fallopian tube.

Topics: Average, Average Person, Persons, Tubes

Laughter is the best medicine, y'know, besides medicine.

source: - "Words, Words, Words". Stand-up comedy routine by Bo Burnham, 2010.

Topics: Laughter, Medicine, Laughter Is The Best Medicine

I stopped and I thought, 'What would Jesus do?' So I didn't exist.

Topics: Funny, Jesus, Humor

Squaring numbers are just like women. If they're under thirteen, just do them in your head.

source: - Song: New Math

Topics: Numbers, Thirteen, Ifs

No one entertains the thought that maybe God does not believe in you.

source: - Song: From God's Perspective

Topics: Believe, Doe, Believe In You

Where are all the sour patch parents?

source: - Song: Binary Reality, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Funny, Humor, Parent

How old is too old to stop believing in, like, the tooth fairy? Like 12? I've got a cousin who is 18... Yeah, still believes in gay marriage.

source: - Song: Theoretical Dick Jokes

Topics: Cousin, Believe, Gay, Tooth Fairy

All you god damn dirty Catholics can cath-o-lick my balls.

source: - Song: Klan Kookout, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Funny, Dirty, Humor

I masturbate 'cause I'm the only one whose standards are low enough to f-k me.

Topics: Causes, Enough, Lows

I don't need anything as long as I have my family, friends, millions of dollars, unlimited pussy.

source: - Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. December 19, 2013.

Topics: Long, Pussy, Dollars

Poetic talent is really easy to fake when thy sentences doth no f-king sense make.

Topics: Kings, Fake, Talent

The classic comedian says there's nothing that's taboo; if you laugh at one thing you've got to laugh at everything, that comedy is taking people to dark areas and showing them the light.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Dark, Light, Laughing

Do unto others as you would have them do to you, said the rapist.

source: - Song: Haikus Sonnet Shakespeare, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Bible, Jesus, Kindness, Loving Others, Jesus Words

Is there anything better than pussy? Yeah, a really good book.

Topics: Book, Pussy, Good Book

People do complain about the way I act on stage... They think on stage I act too arrogant, too self-obsessed, solecistic, self-contained, synonyms.

Topics: Thinking, Self, People, Synonym, Self Obsessed

We're having a traditional Thanksgiving - turkey, mashed potatoes, hat buckles, smallpox, genocide, a blue corn moon, etc.

source: - Twitter post from Nov 24, 2011

Topics: Moon, Blue, Turkeys, Buckles, Mashed Potatoes

I'm happy with what I'm doing. I try not to focus on how I've changed. I just try to focus on what I'm doing now.

Topics: Focus, Trying, I've Changed

Twitter is a lot like crystal meth, because it's really fun to do and Oprah's on it.

source: - Twitter post from Oct 1, 2009

Topics: Funny, Humor, Crystals, Crystal Meth

I met a bipolar bear. He laughed, cried, then wanted a threesome.

Topics: Bipolar, Bears, Mets, Threesome

I actually wrestled in high school. I was only in one match, and I lost... my virginity.

Topics: Funny, School, Humor

I'm interested in taboos for certain reasons. They can dramatise things and they're scary, and they're important to think about. I'm also wary about the fact that if you don't proceed with caution and understand what you're doing, you understand these things are realities that you're dealing with, they're real things.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Real, Thinking, Scary

Poverty. Racism. Isn't it strange, only the homeless are begging for change?

Topics: Funny, Humor, Racism

I don't like calling myself a "feminist" only because I don't think I've done anything active enough to call myself one. It'd be like calling myself a civil rights activist just because I'm not racist.

Topics: Thinking, Rights, Feminist

Nothing's true that I say, because I don't really want to say anything. I don't think my life's that cool, and I don't think my opinion's that valid. They're just silly jokes. Usually I just take a topic that isn't funny at all, like Shakespeare, and work backwards. I just try to find an unfunny subject.

source: - Source: www.shockya.com

Topics: Silly, Thinking, Trying

If your belief is hateful towards people, I couldn't respect that.

Topics: People, Belief, Hateful

If you can think of all the times in your life, some of the happiest times were probably when you were laughing. And some of the worst times in your life you were being laughed at.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Thinking, Laughing, Worst Times

Do you guys like impressions? "Why?" That was Socrates.

Topics: Guy, Impression

I'm gay for Jesus, fill me with your grace. Pour your love all over me, but please aim away from my face.

Topics: Funny, Jesus, Humor

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm thankful for all of you. I am not thankful for the pilgrims. Buckles should never be on hats.

source: - Twitter post from Nov 26, 2009

Topics: Happy Thanksgiving, Hats, Should, Buckles

Women are like fingers and toes because they're easy to count on.

source: - Song: Men & Women, Album: Words Words Words

Topics: Funny, Humor, Toes, Fingers And Toes

I'd really love to make something that doesn't involve my stupid face.

Topics: Stupid, Faces

Love is all about... whistles.

source: - Song: Love Is, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Love Is

I see young people being dismissed for supposedly wanting only "stupid" and "easy" material, or that they don't have an attention span longer than three minutes. I disagree with all those statements; I just think they aren't true. I'm saying that our generation wants stuff that is substantial and challenging, as well as thoughtful and endearing. Well, I don't know if I'm doing that, but I'm trying.

source: - Source: www.popmatters.com

Topics: Stupid, Thoughtful, Thinking, Attention Span, Endearing

I get more ass than a giant donkey stable.

source: - Song: Bo' Fo' Sho', Album: Bo Fo Sho

Topics: Funny, Humor, Giants

I never said I was funny, OK, so stop staring at me.

source: - Song: Theoretical Dick Jokes

Topics: Said, Staring

And if ten percent of men are gay and twenty percent of men are Chinese, what are the odds that a men chosen at random spends his free time and mealtime while on his knees.

source: - Song: New Math, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Funny, Humor, Gay

Then the challenge is, once you left brain it and build it, then when you're on stage you have to know it so well that you can get lost in it. I don't want to be onstage looking like a robot, I want to be at the end of the day very emotional and what feels like someone being up there rather than reciting things. That's always the challenge, to analyze and then somehow lose yourself in something you absolutely know backwards and forwards. And nothing's going to surprise you, but you have to be surprised by it and let it surprise you.

Topics: Emotional, Challenges, Brain, Reciting, Left Brain

I got a safe full of cherries 'cause I pop it and lock it.

source: - Song: I’m Bo Yo, Album: Bo Burnham, 2009

Topics: Funny, Humor, Locks

If I have enough money to support myself, I'll just give stuff away. I just, I want people to see it and I want to be able to do this for a living, you know what I mean? So it's just a balance. If I'm not doing well for five years, then I'm selling stuff, but if I'm doing well and I can afford to give stuff away, I'll always do that.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Mean, Years, Giving

There's a metal train that a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he's a good conductor?

source: - Song: New Math, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Funny, Humor, Long, Lightning Bolts

I love you like a gay geneticist loves designer genes.

Topics: Funny, Love You, Humor, I Love You Like, Love You Like

My persona on stage was always coming from a place of I know better than you and I'm going to be a little bit pretentious in your face with these sort of crass ideas.

source: - Source: www.craveonline.com

Topics: Ideas, Faces, Littles, Crass

I know it's the comedian's instinct to say, "Do it, man, nothing's off-limits! It's cool, bro!" I don't know if that's the answer for me. "Do I really want to make a joke about a miscarriage when a woman in the audience might have had one?" I don't worship comedy; at the end of the day I don't fall to the altar of comedy unquestioningly.

source: - Source: www.popmatters.com

Topics: Fall, Miscarriage, Men

Happy Thanksgiving! I broke into Best Buy and stole a copy of Pocahontas to celebrate.

source: - Twitter post from Nov 25, 2010

Topics: Happy Thanksgiving, Broke, Celebrate, Best Buy

My persona is most importantly just to communicate the material in a way that is most funny and meaningful in the moment. It's more like a character that's sculpted for whatever joke needs communicating at the moment.

source: - Source: mancunion.com

Topics: Meaningful, Character, Way, Most Funny

People ask me all the time, ALL the time, they say the same exact thing. They say, 'Bo, you're an artist... how do we fix Africa?'

Topics: Funny, Humor, Artist

Back home they call me the tie-dye shirt kid. Well, that and faggot.

Topics: Funny, Home, Humor, Tie Dye, Fagots

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: People, Lovely, Trying

I've been doin' drive-bys all of my life. Except the bullets are newspapers, the car is my bike.

source: - Song: 3.14 Apple Pi

Topics: Car, Bullets, Newspapers

I thought I wanted to be a physicist in high school until I learned that there was much more math than philosophy in it. I assumed I would just sit around all day and think.

source: - Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. December 20, 2013.

Topics: Philosophy, School, Math

Comedy should be a source of positivity. I don't want to bully people, and I don't want people to come to my show to feel terrible about something. I'm actually very open to having a conversation about what I should or shouldn't say.

source: - Source: www.popmatters.com

Topics: Positivity, People, Bully

People give me money and I don't know why, my real collection plate is an empty cup held by a homeless guy.

Topics: Real, People, Giving, Empty Cup

And two balls minus one, six titles at the tour de France.

source: - Song: New Math, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Funny, Humor, Two, Minus

Humour is often linked to shared experience. Like, a guy gets up and says, "Have you noticed public restrooms have really inefficient hand-dryers?" Oh my God, yes I have, hahaha, really good point, they should... fix that. It's good to know that somebody finally gets me!

Topics: Funny, Humor, Hands, Shared Experiences, Restroom

Even if he is your friend, never, ever call an Asian person.

source: - Song: Haikus Sonnet Shakespeare, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Asian, Persons, Ifs

I've found, across the board, that comedians have been very respectful and kind to me. And that seems to stem from the fact that they are just respectful and kind people in general. Comedians get a bad rap for being dark and anti-social I think.

Topics: Rap, Dark, Thinking, Kind People, Anti Social

The biggest danger, for me, with making yourself your act is that a lot of people with think they know you for better or worse. That's an ongoing struggle with me and it can get really trippy sometimes. I try to be strong about it and assure myself that only my close friends and family can really pass judgement on me personally, but it's impossible to not let it get to you.

source: - Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. December 19, 2013.

Topics: Strong, Struggle, Thinking, Trippy

Drugs kill, just like cancer. So don't smoke... tumors.

Topics: Funny, Cancer, Humor, Tumors

I'm a stand up comic and I always sit and slouch, and I got my girlfriend pregnant on my sterile uncles pull-out couch.

source: - Song: Ironic, Album: Words Words Words, 2010

Topics: Funny, Girlfriend, Uncles

I'm not a grown up until everybody realises I'm a grown up. When everyone remembers me as the dirty kid singing little songs I am the dirty little kid.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Song, Dirty, Kids

I believe, firmly, that women are always right. Ah, I should actually rephrase that: I... don't.

Topics: Funny, Believe, Humor

And an anteater plus a large hungry mutant ant? An ironic way to die.

source: - Song: New Math, Album: Bo Burnham

Topics: Funny, Humor, Ironic

I'm friends with a lot of comedians, but we don't talk about material. Most comedians I know don't watch a lot of other comedy.

Topics: Comedian, Watches, Comedy

If comedy is about surprises, about tension, there's a lot of tension and surprise there, in the fact that people are expecting this to be natural.

source: - Source: www.craveonline.com

Topics: People, Facts, Comedy

My whole family thinks I'm gay, I guess it's always been that way. Maybe it's 'cause of the way that I walk, Makes them think I like... boys.

source: - Song: My Whole Family

Topics: Funny, Humor, Gay

I work really hard on the shows and I think the shows speak for themselves. I don't want to construct the show to prove something.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Thinking, Want, Speak

I'm very interested in trying to make comedy shows that are a bit bigger, more theatrical, more of a "show." Some people might say I'm trying too hard, but that's a compliment to me. I like to inject a bit of production value and flair to comedy, or at least to my little corner of comedy.

source: - Source: www.popmatters.com

Topics: People, Trying, Littles, Trying Too Hard, Flair

I never felt like I was stealing anyone's fans as much as I was introducing some younger people to comedy who will eventually find tons of other comedians that they love.

Topics: People, Comedian, Fans

Comedy is very strange to me and I don't fully understand it's purpose or function.

source: - Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. December 19, 2013.

Topics: Purpose, Comedy, Strange

I do think that stand-up comedy in general heavily favors masculinity and so I like to act a little feminine onstage.

Topics: Thinking, Favors, Littles

I'm a drunken midget with a loaded gun, a loaded gun.

Topics: Gun, Midget, Loaded, Loaded Gun

That's what YouTube's become, it's become like a lot of vloggers capitalizing on this sort of like "My fans, I love my fans, hey guys." I've grown up and kind of been disgusted by that. I think it's using people, I think it's like encouraging something that's unhealthy, telling people you love them. "I love you." Oh really, you love your fans? You love the people that give you money and attention? Of course you do, that's not selfless that you love your fans, that's ridiculous.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Using People, Love You, Thinking, Disgusted

People are gonna think that MTV censored me, and they really didn't. I really wanted to try to make a show that didn't rely on offensive, edgy material because I think it was an exercise in trying to write without that. Because I see that as a crutch sometimes and I want to know that I can do something funny and worthwhile without that. And also make a show that my parents would like and that kids could watch with their parents.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Writing, Kids, Exercise, Censored

The strength of comedy is I don't have to answer to anybody but sometimes you want to learn from other people and see your ideas strengthen by other people.

Topics: Ideas, People, Answers

In comedy, falling means laughter. You can take something sacred and make it silly. The more sacred it is, the funnier it is. It has a bigger drop to fall.

source: - Source: www.shockya.com

Topics: Laughter, Silly, Fall

I just try to do things on stage that I think the audience would enjoy. And I try to draw on and add to acts that I've enjoyed watching.

Topics: Thinking, Trying, Add

The thing is, I was on YouTube like the golden era, I think. Before ads came in, it was really cool back then.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Thinking, Golden, Eras

I think no matter what you do, a certain amount of people are going to call you a sellout, somehow, you know. If I ever start trying to make a living on it.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Thinking, People, Trying

For some comedians it feels so cool to be like: 'I'll say anything, man!'. I'm not quite there yet.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Men, Comedian, Say Anything

I don't consciously try to make things difficult as much as I try to make them a little different. I like all kinds of laughs. I tried to make a show that elicit groans, guffaws, chuckles, boos.

Topics: Laughing, Trying, Different, Chuckles

I think controversy has this allusion of being controversial but it's totally not, which is why I'm trying to get away from it because it's just easy and automatic.

source: - Source: mancunion.com

Topics: Thinking, Trying, Controversial, Allusion

My first concern is that when you go to a show, you should be present. It's much more exciting to put the camera down and lose yourself in it.

source: - Source: www.popmatters.com

Topics: Cameras, Down And, Firsts

When things [writing] are over, I always think, 'well, I'm never going to do anything again because I have no ideas so I'm going to go be a farmer'. Or else ideas will come and and if not then I become a farmer. Hopefully won't happen.

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Ideas

I don't want to try to recreate for no reason. Like, me in my bedroom, singing songs to a camera was a special thing that was at that time in my life. But I'm just not that kid. I like the format of it, but I want to be able to release things for free.

source: - Source: www.uloop.com

Topics: Song, Kids, Singing, Special Things, Singing Songs

It's not most important to communicate myself on stage as it is to be as funny or interesting as I possibly can on stage. I feel more like I'm doing a play whose main character just happens to share my name.

source: - Source: mancunion.com

Topics: Character, Play, Names

The strange thing with Wikipedia is that the first article that ever gets written about you will define your Wikipedia page forever.

source: - Source: thelatest.co.uk

Topics: Forever, Firsts, Wikipedia

What's that? My six song album entitled Bo Fo Sho is currently available on iTunes? With three songs that have never been heard on the internet? Uh, and if I try to pirate it for free I'll get AIDS? I would have guessed scurvy. Well, see you later ghost of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

source: - Song: I'm Bo Yo

Topics: Song, Kings, Pirate, Dr Martin Luther King, Itunes