Sebastian Maniscalco

“My idea of fun would be to review the customers. I could give some customers one star, so that restaurateurs would know when they walked in not to serve them.”

“Sometimes it's cool to have banter with the audience. Occasionally, somebody will say something, and I'll say something right back, and everybody laughs, and it's funny.”

“I grew up in an immigrant household with an Italian father who came to the U.S. when he was 15.”

“I developed a knack for storytelling early on around the kitchen table with my family. I just happen to be a funny guy.”

“Every heckler is unique because they say something, and you react to what they say or what they're wearing or who they're with, so every response to a heckle is unique.”

“I don't like long jokes. I like stories rather than setup punchlines.”

“Although my values and my morals are old-school, you have to kind of key into the landscape of social media and how the world is progressing. I'd be a fool to sit there and go, 'Yeah, let's use the telephone to telemarket myself'... Social media is something that I definitely have to tap into, to another demographic.”

“I like Las Vegas because it kind of gives me a chance to gauge my material in front of a very diverse group of people. There are a lot of different people in the audience, and you can kind of get a barometer for how your material plays throughout the country.”

“I was always taught how to dress for the occasion.”

“I'll never stop doing stand-up. There's nothing better than getting in front of 2,500 people and making an entire room laugh.”

“Everybody seems to be wasting their time online. There is such a narcissistic attitude. It's such a strange world.”

“I've never seen a weirder group of people than at the post office. It looks like people are crawling out from under rocks to go to the post office.”

“I do reflect on it sometimes, going, 'Wow, if I knew what I knew now I would be such a better server.'”

“When I was growing up, we dressed up for church.”

“The business of being told to earn a dollar, that no one is going to give you anything - that was kind of my mantra throughout my childhood, and now it's in my adult life. I find that people really tend to relate to the immigrant father, whether he be Italian, Greek, Spanish or whatever.”