Ali Farahnakian

“Work on your craft, and your career will come. Work on your community, and your career will come. But just work on your career, and you'll have neither a craft nor a community.”

“Teaching someone to be funny is like teaching someone to be fast. They're already fast. You're just making them faster.”

“There was a period in my life when I would say no, and I didn't know why I was saying no. In most cases, it was out of fear, just trying to be safe. Because 'no' will keep you safe. 'No' won't draw attention to you. But all the cool things are on the other side of 'Yes, And.'”

“The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.”

“Baseball players practice, runners practice, so how can you practice being funny? You get up onstage. You train as an improviser, playing make-believe, using the vernacular of improvisation, saying 'yes and' to other people's ideas, making statements.”

“There are a million ways of arriving at a performance, any number of them solid.”