Jim Breuer Quotes

On the DVD ‘Hardcore,’ half the material was about me growing up in Valley Stream.

Me and my wife started with absolutely nothing.

I’m the corner street storytelling guy. I’m the guy in the garage that the neighbors come over to talk to and I keep you entertained for hours.

I don’t follow politics. I don’t read news and I don’t watch TV.

When you’re in this business, you’re chasing false identities, chasing money and stardom, which is nothing you can hold onto.

I have a weird fan base, people from all over the place for some reason.

I grew up an ’80s metal guy.

Twenty years is what it takes to become a marriage warrior.

Don’t ever underestimate someone’s ability to live for the moment. At the end of the day everyone has a ‘Mr. Rock n Roll’ in them.

There’s not a lot of comics with anything to say. It’s entertaining, but when you think of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor or Bill Cosby, they all had something to say.

You’ll very rarely hear me curse now. I think I’ve changed since I’ve had children.

I consider myself a modern-day dad, where I still got rock’n’roll in me, but yet I take being a parent and relationships very seriously in life. I’m tired of the image of the father as a fat, beer-chugging, stupid guy. That image has to change. I’m changing it, baby, one city at a time.

I can’t see myself every leaving. I love New Jersey.

The faith world to me is like a radio station. It’s there. And if you want to plug in and listen to it, kind of tune into it, it can definitely be helpful. I don’t know if it’s an energy? I don’t know what it is, but it fascinates me.

To me, morality and family is more important than anything else in life. You don’t get a second chance at it. Vanity, ego and all that is not something I get to take to the grave.

When you have three teenage girls, and you’re married 21 years, and have a mother who’s blind in one eye and has dementia who lives with you, and your dad has worse dementia, and you’re into metal, and your wife is born again, you’re never running out of material.

On stage, you have the instant reaction. I’m in control of my own destiny up there. If I fail, I can always say, ‘I should have read that audience better. I don’t know why I went in that direction.’ In the commercial world, you’re not writing your character.

I’m a family guy who grew up with metal, and even though I’m domesticated I still have this in me.

No matter how many times I was tempted with fame and vanity I always go back to Valley Stream, which was always about community and family.

I’ve been around comedians that try their bits around you. I hate that.

I’m clean but I’m not Disney.

I was very blue collar, and I had a great upbringing.

To me as a fan, as a die-hard AC/DC fan, Brian Johnson is the reason I discovered AC/DC.

Kids are like roosters, up at the first sign of dawn.

I was hoping for big TV, film, and this and that, but stand-up was the only thing I knew.

I make my own schedule, I control my destiny, I get what I work for, and the money is great.

Past? I never look back to the past.

As a kid, we were outdoors as much as possible.

Hannibal Buress keeps popping up. His delivery cracks me up. He’s smart and funny.

I’m a die-hard Metallica fan, I know the guys.

I never left my street until I was 16 years old. I didn’t have to. I was entertained on that street forever. We were outside all day. The only reason to go inside was to sleep and eat.

SNL’ pushed my limits. It was great. It taught me about fame, it taught me about the business; it was definitely the best experience, or one of the best, that I’ve had so far. It was a primer for what was to come and what I want out of life.

I’m a huge fan of Giuliani, as a person. Down-to-earth, talks to you like a human.

There’s a confusion of what I do. Are you the rock guy? Are you the family guy? Who are you? I’m the people’s entertainer.

I learned more about my father in his last 5 to 6 years than I ever did my whole lifetime.

I wanted to travel and I was fascinated with stand-up and I just knew nothing was ever going to stop me from doing it. My mom tried to, she’d say ‘You need to go to school and have a back up.’ Nah, mom, this is it.

I don’t bring politics, religion or media to the table.

No matter what happens in the future, I still want to be like Carlin, like Dangerfield where I can hit a stage when I’m 85 and still here people cracking up.

So I started as a comic at 18 and got really into it by the time I was 21, 22, so I was on the road a lot. I lived everything I needed to live like a rock star.

I find myself laughing at a lot of things, from slapstick to dark humor. I’m pretty much all over the place.

The thing that’s gotten me everywhere in my standup is talking about my family. I started doing it back in high school. I don’t think our society looks at marriage and family enough. I think we’ve gone off course.

The Mets represent life and the reality of life, the winning, the losing, the hope, the faith. You stick with them through the ups and the downs, the heartbreaks. Every year you always have hope. You always have faith, even when they break your heart. You get mad, but you stick with them. They’re humbling.

I grew up Valley Stream until my parents moved to Florida when I was 20. I graduated from Valley Stream Central High School in 1985. It was the best childhood anyone could ever ask for.

You can stump any stoner with one question: What were we just talking about?

I like old-school, riff-driven, hard rock music with big hooks!

Brian Johnson, AC/DC, singing ‘The Hokey Pokey’ with him – I’ll take that over any other moment.

Most of the time I write visually. I get a visual of me in the audience watching the concert. I usually come up with the hooks first. Like with ‘Old School.’

There’s nothing more powerful than stand-up. Crushing with your own material, with your own energy, controlling an audience: There’s no better high. It’s awesome.

I’ve got a very wide sense of humor.

Brian Johnson is the reason I became a Bon Scott fan.

Everywhere I go, I feel the city out. I walk around and get there early, and I go off the cuff with whatever’s going on in town.

A lot of my stand-up point of view is family – not Disney but dealing with teenagers.

If there are kids in the crowd, I try to be more animated for them. It does change a little bit each show. There’s a lot of improv.

I met Jack Nicholson, who lived up to his persona, and when we met, he lifted the sunglasses he was wearing at 2 in the morning, and giggling, he told me, ‘You look the way I feel all the time.’

You tell your guy friends you got engaged, it’s like hearing someone died. ‘What happened man? Wow. He was so young, man. What happened? He had his whole life ahead of him. Wow, I just saw him yesterday.

The energy of the metal is what I’ve always loved and the energy I do on stage with standup, I mean, I’m not Metallica, but I’ve always extremely attracted and driven by that energy and the thought-provoking lyrics and drive. That’s an attitude every standup show I go in. I go in to crush your face.

Girls, do yourself a favor, don’t ever bring us anywhere to pick anything out – ever, ever. You don’t need us there.

Obviously, being a diehard Mets fan, my passion is a given, but I also love playing baseball. I hadn’t been able to participate since high school, when the game became a little too fast for me.

The truth hurts but it has to be heard.

One of the things I did, I would go, ‘Dad, I know you don’t know how to work YouTube, but wait until you see this concert. I found Hank Williams in 1940. And look at this.’ Then that brings on memories and it brings happiness and it gives him a little extra breath in life.

I started out in 1989 doing open mic nights. The first 10 years, I was literally all about I’m going to be a star. I want leather pants, I want a kangaroo, I want to be on ‘MTV Cribs,’ I want to go to the mall with a pet monkey and I want everyone to go, ‘Wow, that guy’s huge, he’s successful.’

Vulnerability, humility, relatability – those three are very close and very similar to keep you going.

I have been fortunate enough to have a diverse career – appearing on TV, touring the country and meeting tons of celebrities, even hanging out with rock stars – and it has been a blast.

I wanted nothing to do with Hollywood. It’s everything I’m against. I’m all for one and one for all, and there, it’s ‘All for me and I will do anything to get it.’ And that is not a way of living for me.