William Frederick Burr is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and podcaster, best known for his sardonic observational humor. Profoundly inspirational Bill Burr quotes and jokes will fire up your brain and inspire you to look at life differently while making you laugh.
If you’re searching for funny quotes from the most popular comedians that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound Bill Cosby quotes, amazing Bill Hicks quotes and top Bill Maher quotes.
Famous Bill Burr Quotes
The only time I get sick of making people laugh is when I’m in a non-writing-joke mode, and I just can’t seem to come up with anything new that’s funny. That’s a tough place to be as a comedian. – Bill Burr
You’re a kid, your whole life is awesome. It’s awesome, right? You had no money, no ID, no cell phone, no nothing, no keys to the house. You just ran outside into the woods. You weren’t scared of nothing. I challenge you to do that as an adult. All your IDs, all your credit cards – just run out of the house with no phone, turn the corner where you can’t see your house, and not have a full on panic attack. – Bill Burr
I think the fear of humiliating yourself on stage always motivates me to give at least 90 percent. I’ve definitely been guilty of leaning on the mic stand, but you can only do that so long before you’re like, “Jesus, I’m bombing.” The fact that people pay to come see me, that’s really just out the window. – Bill Burr
I’m not going to lie. I am a psycho. Luckily, I get most of it out on stage. – Bill Burr
Oh look, an ATM! Ok, here we go! I lost all my money, now what do I do? Get a gun! Rob a casino! Good idea! Look at all the lights! This is beautiful. – Bill Burr
You know why men make more money than women? Because, in the unlikely event that we’re both on the Titanic and it starts to sink, for some reason, you get to leave with the kids and I have to stay – that’s why I get the dollar more an hour. – Bill Burr
Realize that sleeping on a futon when you’re 30 is not the worst thing. You know what’s worse, sleeping in a king bed next to a wife you’re not really in love with but for some reason you married, and you got a couple kids, and you got a job you hate. You’ll be laying there fantasizing about sleeping on a futon. There’s no risk when you go after a dream. There’s a tremendous amount to risk to playing it safe. – Bill Burr
I’m one of those guys like whatever the situation is, as long as people are cool and everybody is trying to be funny, I have a good time. – Bill Burr
Rich people never go to war. You ask a college kid to go to war, and he’s like, ‘Umm, I’m taking this sociology class, and I think war is, like, really stupid, and my roommate’s, like, half Afghani, so it’s going to cause some static.’ – Bill Burr
Surround yourself with positive people. Also, be a positive person. Root for people. Somebody else’s success is not your failure. – Bill Burr
Deny your emotions and act like you have answers – Bill Burr
Pitbulls are like a gun you can pet. – Bill Burr
You know what a cubicle basically says? It basically says, like, ‘You know what? We don’t think you’re smart enough for an office, but we don’t want you to look at anybody. – Bill Burr
Before I even knew what stand up was, I tried to make people laugh at school because that was how I made friends, so I think that’s how I got drawn into comedy and obviously I was just some kid at school being silly, so the first time I saw a professional comedian and how smooth and funny the person was I totally got into standup and I would say obviously Richard Pryor was the guy. He’s the greatest of all time and then George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Bill Cosby. It’s so weird to bring up his name now but leaving out his off-stage antics… you could learn a lot from him. – Bill Burr
Gold diggers are the wife beaters of men! – Bill Burr
I was in NYC during 9/11; it happened on a Tuesday, I was on stage Thursday. It was a small crowd, but it took about 10 days and comedy clubs were packed. – Bill Burr
I do my podcast on Mondays for a specific reason. A lot of people go to work and don’t like their jobs. If you give people something to laugh about, it’s good. – Bill Burr
There are no winners in this election [2016]. I paid attention to it for about two months and then it just started to depress me. At least Hillary’s [Clinton] a politician, but the fact that you’ve got a guy from a reality TV show! I have to say, out of everything I’ve ever watched in sports – the greatest comebacks ever – watching [Donald Trump] get the nomination for the Republican Party is the most astounding thing I’ve ever seen. – Bill Burr
I bet The Walking Dead gets really low ratings out in Montana, just because all they need to do is look out their f-king window, am I right? – Bill Burr
It was right after 9/11 and I decided to walk around the grounds of the Pentagon, because I had never been there. Out of nowhere comes this speeding camouflaged golf cart and this guy starts yelling at me, ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ The guy wrote my name down and began to follow me before I got really scared and took off as fast as I could. – Bill Burr
I was certified to take x-rays, but you can’t just show up and start cleaning people’s teeth. – Bill Burr
So many people there are in politics that they’re overly cautious about laughing at stuff. They’re so damned concerned about what everyone else is thinking. What are they worried about? Nobody ever walked into a show as a bleeding-heart liberal and had a comedian undo 30 years of life experience. – Bill Burr
Ric Flair is the greatest guy ever. He just wants to hang out, have a beer, and tell stories. He’s the coolest. I’ve never met The Rock though. – Bill Burr
Stand up comedy is this thing you get to do, so you have to treat it with respect. You can’t just be like, ‘Alright, I got my hour down, people are coming to see me now. Now, I’m going to lean on the mike stand.’ No, you gotta work even harder now. You got to top what you already did. Because they’ll find someone else. – Bill Burr
If you’re on social media as a performer you can tell. If you don’t get any Tweets you know it’s bombed. I can pretty much gauge how it’s doing by comparing the reception to shows I’ve done that have actual ratings. – Bill Burr
Before I even knew what stand up was, I tried to make people laugh at school because that was how I made friends, so I think that’s how I got drawn into comedy and obviously I was just some kid at school being silly, so the first time I saw a professional comedian and how smooth and funny the person was I totally got into standup and I would say obviously Richard Pryor was the guy. He’s the greatest of all time and then George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Bill Cosby. It’s so weird to bring up his name now but leaving out his off-stage antics… you could learn a lot from him. – Bill Burr
Funny Bill Burr Quotes
I think I know how to raise a kid. You just play catch with ’em. You just talk about life, and you distract them by throwing the ball. They don’t even notice that you’re filling up their heads with your theories. – Bill Burr
I heard a quote once in a documentary about a band that said you’re better off owning everything 100 percent and selling 20,000 copies of an album than signing with a record company and selling a million copies. There has never been a truer statement about show business than that. – Bill Burr
I can tell you why I like different countries. Ireland – some of the funniest heckles I’ve ever gotten. And the last time I did England I did Bristol, Manchester, and then London. The whole country is just amazing to drive through. – Bill Burr
I keep doing specials because I think there are a lot of people who make movies and TV who are fans of comedy – if they start to like you, they’ll get a project going and call you in. – Bill Burr
As much as Metallica rocked, they always had these song names… ‘The Thing That Shouldn’t Be’. ‘The Chair That Wasn’t There’, you know? – Bill Burr
I think it’s a privilege to be able to fly to somewhere where people want to see my show. – Bill Burr
I don’t think people know what hygienist means. – Bill Burr
You know what a cubicle basically says? It basically says like, ‘You know what? We don’t think you’re smart enough for an office, but we don’t want you to look at anybody. – Bill Burr
You wanna know how you know you’re informed as a protestor? They don’t show your interview on TV. – Bill Burr
You’re not chasing syndication any more. It used to be a big thing. “Let’s make 100 episodes and we’ll get paid for life”. You know? And what does the sheer amount of content that’s being made do to syndication after a while? It just seems like there’s more content than there is hours for everyone to watch it. But it’s some of the best content that’s ever been created. – Bill Burr
It’s just if one person says anything it becomes click bait and then they start talking about the comedy climate which is hilarious, so no. You know what it is? People are adults and they know they’re at a comedy show but every once in a while, somebody isn’t an adult and then for some reason, you know, it’s lazy reporting. They’re trying to create this thing that isn’t happening. It’s not like people go in there and are just sitting with laptops open getting ready to blog about every stupid joke. – Bill Burr
I actually had the urge to elbow an elderly lady today. – Bill Burr
What would you rather be? 52 and look 52, or 52 and look like a 28-year-old lizard? – Bill Burr
Do you know how many times a week people ask me why I’m yelling? – Bill Burr
A lot of my fears and anxieties are the fears and anxieties of a six-year-old boy. When I finally confront them, they’re really small. – Bill Burr
If you get a chance to go outside of the country, you start examining where you’re from and some of the thought processes. Like when I finally got away from the east coast for a while, and I came back there was just this underlying anger that I never noticed before, because I was born there and just dropped right into it. – Bill Burr
I’m one of those guys where you know, I’m 23 years into this and I love the road more than ever and rather than whittling down my schedule to just play the major cities, I’ve actually expanded the amount of places that I go to because I want to see a bunch of stuff. You know, plan it as I can while I’m still young enough to travel. – Bill Burr
It’s a great time to be a comedian because you’ve got so much more control. You can say what you want to. I think in the old days with the studio system the performer was a bit of an afterthought. You can be a wildcard on the internet. But if you put something on the internet once it’s out there it’s out there for life. – Bill Burr
You have no idea how long a year is until you’re stone sober. – Bill Burr
I was painfully shy when I was younger but at some point you’ve gotta grow up. I think the genius in the man-boy thing is you tap into a woman’s motherly instincts. – Bill Burr
I’m not easy to live with. My wife is a saint. – Bill Burr
Any other town you go to there’s this little devil and a little angel on your shoulder. A little good advice, a little bad advice.You go to Las Vegas, there’s like a devil and a devil and they’re just battling it out the whole time. It’s like, “Smoke some crack!” “Get a hooker!” And then I go, “YEA! Yea, this is a good town. Smoke some crack and get a hooker! Alright!”” – Bill Burr
Business runs hot and cold so the more you’re in charge of your own destiny, the better off you are. – Bill Burr
Like I said, you guys in the media will treat the dumbest jacks in the entire f*ng world like they won a Pulitzer prize for journalism and will put that level of weight on it, like they’re an ambassador to some country we’re trying to establish trade with. – Bill Burr
I don’t feel like it’s a wasted vote because I think it encourages more people like that to run. I vote for the candidates that aren’t bought and paid for like the Clintons. – Bill Burr
I love making movies, and being in any that I can be in. I’d like to be in those giant movies, as the fifth or sixth lead, and have three or four killer scenes. You don’t have the responsibility of the entire movie being on you. I like those roles. I’m shooting for the middle. – Bill Burr
Once you do a joke and it works it’s only good for so long, like shooting fish in a barrel. – Bill Burr
The first guy who got Aids was a French flight attendant. How you like that Frenchie! You know when I come back and run for office, that may be the one that comes back and haunts me. – Bill Burr
I used to always work in, like, warehouses, because if my boss gave me a rough time, I could just get on a forklift and just, like, drive away from him. – Bill Burr
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I’m thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I’ve seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming. – Bill Burr
To me this is not yelling. I am not yelling. I’m just passionate about my opinions and I want to tell you all of them before you start talking again. – Bill Burr
Inter-racial sex is probably some of the best sex on the planet. You know what that is? Because with inter-racial sex there’s like this whole added pressure to perform. ‘Cause it’s kinda like you’re not just humping for yourself. You’re humping for your race. You got to represent your people. – Bill Burr
I think it’s a privilege to be able to fly to somewhere where people want to see my show – Bill Burr
Haven’t you noticed that every time the government f-ks up McDonald’s has a new sandwich? – Bill Burr
Only an adult with dying dreams can appreciate how awesome it is to have a dog. – Bill Burr
I’m an idiot, basically. I don’t think that I’m a dumb guy, but I also realise that I have access to about 0.1 percent of the information that I need to have a truly informed opinion about half the stuff I talk about. I’m like that loud guy in the bar, who kind of makes sense for about ten minutes, and then you realise he flunked everything at high school so you just laugh at him. – Bill Burr
We need a plague. It’s gotta happen. And don’t worry, it’s only gonna kill the weak. Seriously. Put on a sweater, take some vitamins, you’re gonna be fine! We gotta let mother nature do her thing, man. She keeps trying to help us out and we won’t let her do it. – Bill Burr
God’s everywhere, but I gotta go down (to church) to see him? Really? And he’s mad at me down there, and I owe you money? – Bill Burr
Some guy workin’ at Home Depot, he wants to f-k just as many women as a celebrity. But he can’t do it, because whores don’t care about lumber. – Bill Burr
Let’s go to Brunch. What a great idea! Why would you want to sleep in on a Sunday when you can go pay $18 for eggs? Now, you’re thinking. – Bill Burr
I’ve found is that by doing stand-up, I’ve actually learned how to combat depression. I don’t have clinical, but I’ve definitely had my bouts with it. I just figured out that it’s a choice. You’re in control of your brain. When your brain is sending you bad information or bad thoughts, you can decide to go to the gym, or write a new joke – or if you’re on the road, go to a ball game… something that’s going to get the blood going. Or you can let those thoughts take you right down the rabbit hole. – Bill Burr
Nothing worse than when a 6 acts like a 10. – Bill Burr
I gotta be honest with you. I’m kind of jealous of the way my dad gets to talk to my mom sometimes. Where are all those old-school women you can just take your day out on? When did they stop making those angels? – Bill Burr
I’ve never wanted to kill myself over anything major. It’s always the little things that do me in. – Bill Burr
I wish they would teach it in schools: Give people the belief that they are going to do well. A lot of people are really talented and scared to follow their talent because you don’t know where it’s going. – Bill Burr
Hilarious Bill Burr Quotes
My favorite kind of humor is basically, if it was happening to you, it wouldn’t be funny, but to observe it, it’s hilarious. – Bill Burr
I love my dog. I hate bankers. I have issues with women. In my head, I’m a great guy. – Bill Burr
Your twenties is all about taking your childhood out on everyone that you run into. – Bill Burr
If I get married, I get a tax break, if I have a kid I get a tax break, if I get a mortgage I get a tax break. I don’t have any kids and I drive a hybrid; I think I should get a tax break. I’m trying to pay off my apartment, so I have something tangible. I actually figured out if I paid off my place my reward would be that I would pay an extra four grand a year in taxes. – Bill Burr
There is no reason to hit a woman. And I was just like, really? I could give you, like, 17 right off the top of my head. – Bill Burr
Being a stand-up comic, this isn’t a stepping-stone for me; it’s what I do, and this is what I’m always going to do. And even if I do a TV show, the only reasons to do a TV show is to get more people to know me to come out to my stand-up shows. – Bill Burr
Realize that sleeping on a futon when you’re 30 is not the worst thing. You know what’s worse, sleeping in a king bed next to a wife you’re not really in love with but for some reason you married, and you got a couple kids, and you got a job you hate. You’ll be laying there fantasizing about sleeping on a futon. There’s no risk when you go after a dream. There’s a tremendous amount to risk to playing it safe. – Bill Burr
If I can sell out clubs and theaters and play dirtbags in movies and get blown up in a car or get the crap beat out of me in a movie, that’s good for me; I’m good. – Bill Burr
Did you ever spell a word so bad that your spell check has absolutely no clue what you’re trying to spell? What do you end up getting, you end up getting, like, a question mark. You got a million dollars of technology just looking back at you like, ‘You got me, buddy. Which is pretty amazing because I have all the words.’ – Bill Burr
My neighbor’s not even listening to me. He’s all excited about some garden hose he bought at Brookstone. He’s convinced it was designed by NASA. “Actually, it’s got two nozzles, one for the hot and one for the…” Really? Is it long enough to go around both our necks and the chimney so we can tandem jump off of this? That’s all I really care about you and your little garden hose. – Bill Burr
Like most comics, I tried to come up with a sitcom idea that was based around my life. And it didn’t work out. But maybe because it didn’t work out, that’s why I ended up on ‘Breaking Bad;’ I don’t know. – Bill Burr
I used to think you had to live this miserable life and that that would make you funnier, but you don’t. The misery will come. The misery will find you. – Bill Burr
You know, it wasn’t even that I’m a funny guy, I just loved stand-up comedy and I wanted to do it. It was one of the few things in my life that I knew I was going to be able to do, and I also felt as though I’d be able to do it the way I wanted to do it. – Bill Burr
I have this weird sort of Gemini thing where I can really be empathetic and a loving person. But if you piss me off, I can be one of the meanest, most sadistic people. – Bill Burr
You’re a kid, your whole life is awesome. It’s awesome, right? You had no money, no ID, no cell phone, no nothing, no keys to the house. You just ran outside into the woods. You weren’t scared of nothing. I challenge you to do that as an adult. All your IDs, all your credit cards – just run out of the house with no phone, turn the corner where you can’t see your house, and not have a full on panic attack. – Bill Burr
You have to understand how bad I wanted to be a comedian, how much I loved doing it. I still can’t believe I get to do this for a living and have people come up and want to see me. – Bill Burr
For us, a lot of the cartoons and crazy stuff on ‘F is for Family’ are tertiary characters, it happens on the television in the show. We try to keep whatever problem the Murphy family is dealing with rooted as much as we can in reality. – Bill Burr
They say you don’t want to meet your heroes, but those two guys, you do want to meet them, because they do not disappoint. Walken has this amazing sense of humor, and Pacino is like just a sweetheart of a guy. – Bill Burr
You start in bars and then restaurants, then you want to get into comedy clubs where you feature, then you headline, and once you sell out clubs you’re into theaters. I’ve been able to get there, and it’s cool to do that. – Bill Burr
My favorite part of podcasting is running my mouth for an hour. The only time I dont like it is when Im off. Then that hour feels like a day and a half. – Bill Burr
The first night you walk down to a comedy club, at least for me, I had my voice, and then I went on stage and I lost it. – Bill Burr
Patrice O’Neal is the best comic I ever saw. – Bill Burr
Everyone should just drive out to the Mojave Desert and just experience it, and it’s a fun place to live. – Bill Burr
There is a very difficult period in a comedian’s career – it’s that window of time where you’re good enough to draw tickets but nobody knows you yet. – Bill Burr
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I’m thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I’ve seen on HBO—Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor, and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name on that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming. – Bill Burr
Carnegie Hall is as good as they say it is. It’s not like Stonehenge which looks great in books but then you go there and it’s a pile of rocks next to a highway. There’s actually a highway right next to it, but you don’t see that in pictures. – Bill Burr
I still remember the first gig where I got people going, it was Rascals in New Jersey, and the place was packed. I was scared. People were expecting me to be funny. I gotta be honest, every time I walk into a club, it’s that same fear. – Bill Burr
My parents have a ridiculous work ethic; my dad just works, works, works, works, works. I think it would be hard to find a guy who’s logged more hours than that guy. – Bill Burr
Being a comedian is an incredible thing, but it can be scary sometimes. – Bill Burr
When I watch ‘Breaking Bad,’ my stomach is in knots. – Bill Burr
I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So, I’m taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You’ve got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I’m sitting down. – Bill Burr
Working on the Dave Chappelle show was amazing. – Bill Burr
To me, ‘rant’ was ranting and raving. So to me, it’s heightened. Emotional flipping out, frothing at the mouth. Where I grew up, that was a rant. I don’t consider what I’m doing ranting. – Bill Burr
And Donald Trump? That man literally has people shouting the n word at his rallies and he doesn’t address it, which is astounding to me. He’s a terrible person. – Bill Burr
I love doing radio, and I love doing stand-up, obviously. I’m good flying up to four hours, but anything past that, I want to kill myself. – Bill Burr
It’s better to just plough ahead. And if I say something they don’t get, I just make fun of myself for assuming that everybody knows everything about where I live. – Bill Burr
I couldn’t trash [Adolf] Hitler enough. Poor bastards, they make all these contributions to the automotive industry, aeronautics, space – but you pick one wrong guy and it’s all out the window. They’re never gonna live that one down. – Bill Burr
If you’re away from your house for a month, by the time you come back there’s someone else living in it. – Bill Burr
I’ve been bumped, I’ve had to go up after them, I’ve had stuff thrown at me, I’ve been booed. I’ve had people steal from me and lie to me. – Bill Burr
Think about the amount of crap the US has done! Between slavery and the genocide of the Native Americans – if any of that had been filmed like [Adolf] Hitler, we’d never live it down. – Bill Burr
It’s a blue-collar city [Manchester] that’s transitioning into a white-collar place and people are getting priced out. – Bill Burr
It’s a whole new world as far as getting a show on the air. There’s good things and bad things. – Bill Burr
I do enjoy them. I get to meet the next generation of comics and help them out. Big comics doing small shows was something that used to happen a lot more back in the day. I wish there was more of that. – Bill Burr
When I was coming up the DC Improv was considered the best Improv out there. It’s always been high quality stuff coming out of there. – Bill Burr
I wasn’t the good-looking guy, I wasn’t the hot chick, I wasn’t the fat guy, I didn’t have a catchphrase, I didn’t wear a silly hat. I was just trying to improve as a comedian. – Bill Burr
I’m also disappointed in the Democrats that Hillary [Clintom] was the best they could get – It just keeps going back to Bush’s and Clinton’s – I’m sick of ’em! Even Jeb [Bush] was hanging in there for a minute. – Bill Burr
I don’t mind it. I just space it out. Every other week I go out. I used to get some time to myself, but I’ve been pretty busy lately. But I’ve had it the other way, where I’m staring at the phone waiting for it to ring, so this is definitely better. – Bill Burr
London was like that too. It was that time of year when all the rich kids with the oil money have their cars shipped over. Some of the most beautiful cars I’ve ever seen – with the worst paint jobs! It was just this hilarious, disgusting display of wealth. The shamelessness of it. To be that shameless about your money when you’re a guest in a country was astounding to me. But I saw the humor in it. – Bill Burr
I consider Ric Flair to be one of the great comedic minds. But I never got to see him growing up because that was back when they still had territories. – Bill Burr
I’m a standup comedian who gets to act. I’m never going to not do standup. I love doing it and when I go through periods where I’m doing a lot of acting work, I still do standup. – Bill Burr
I never wanted to spend a month away from my life. One time I was out on the road for three weeks in a row and I when I came back someone had broken into my apartment and the water had evaporated from the toilet. – Bill Burr
I’m trying to get away from trashing women, to be honest. I think I’ve done enough of that in my career. – Bill Burr
I am so pro-swine flu it’s ridiculous. – Bill Burr
Acting in a sitcom or a comedy movie is like a comedy routine with the setups. – Bill Burr
People make a big deal about podcasts but it’s basically an online radio show with the sound effects and sidekicks, but because you can curse it’s more like satellite radio. Most of the podcasters were morning guys who were fired when Clear Channel decimated the radio landscape. – Bill Burr
If you try to deliver a funny line in a funny way, it comes out as wacky and you ruin the scene. – Bill Burr
I just do my act. If people in England don’t get my joke, I make fun of myself for telling it. – Bill Burr
I cannot believe that [Donald Trump] is actually in the debates. – Bill Burr
I’m always looking at new ways to tell a joke so that it doesn’t get stale while working on new jokes every night or I would go absolutely crazy and would want to kill myself. I just want to go in there and talk about what’s bugging me. – Bill Burr
Comedians have the ability to feel other emotions. – Bill Burr
