Charlie Rose: An interview with David Letterman

David Letterman: I worked at the station for 5 years, a radio station, and knew something else was going on. I had the sense that ‘there’s something else out there’. And I didn’t think I was going to be satisfied or fulfilled doing a 4-h half hour kid’s show once a week.

And I would see these guys come on the tonight show, these comedians, and I would think, “Oh man, I wonder if maybe I could do that a little bit.” So I told my family I was going out to be a writer, you know, because the idea of me actually being in show business would have horrified and sickened everyone and now, come to think of it, the fact of me in show business actually horrifies and sickens millions (laughing).

Charlie Rose: Yeah, but then you brought your mother into show business.

DL: Oh lord… ah, so I said I was going to go out to be a writer because I felt like that’s my calling, I said, “I’m a goofy looking guy and nobody is going to really want me on the screen…” but I knew in the back of my mind what I would try is to get into comedy, to do stand-up comedy.

And in those days, uh, you knew how to do that. And that was to go right to The Comedy Store and start doing it. Before that, I wouldn’t have known how to get into comedy.

Charlie Rose: An interview with David Letterman / Friday, February 16, 1996

(thanks Mark)