- An adult western is where the hero still kisses his horse at the end, only now he worries about it.
- If evolution works, why do mothers only have two hands.
- If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.
- Money can't buy you happiness, but it helps you look for it in a lot more places.
- A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
- I live to laugh, and I laugh to live.
- [on all the chatter at the 1965 Academy Awards about one romantic twosome in the audience] When I took out Woodrow Wilson's daughter, they didn't make such a fuss.
- Don't tell jokes only the band laughs at.
- [to Arnold Schwarzenegger] You being funny with your accent is twice as big a deal as me being funny. They expect me to be funny!
- Arnold Schwarzenegger has bigger boobs than his wife!
- [how to tell a joke] Delivery, not stressing the punchline, timing.
- You get a lot of awards when you're a star, and lots of them are irrelevant.
- Don't burn, just singe.
- You show the emotion so you get the audience going the other way.
- [on his beginning as a comic] I had copied my style from a great comic, Ted Healy. I patterned myself after Healy, with the hat turned up in front and the collegiate look. I was the brash, flippant wise guy, smart-ass type.
- I have a file of four million jokes . . . I have them cross-indexed. Whatever subject you want, I have a joke on it.
- [on his early television show] The first year I was on, '48 or '49, I didn't even have a writer. I just remembered what I did for the last 20 years 'cause we couldn't afford a writer--there wasn't any money. So it was a pretty difficult thing and the facilities were difficult.
- [his definition of a comic]. . . a comic is a guy who depends solely on the joke, and we have thousands of them. The comedian can get a laugh opening a door in the funny way that he does it and his attitude--that's a comic versus a comedian. Now a "funnyman" can get a laugh before opening his mouth--looking funny. Lou Costello was one of your great funnymen. Harry Langdon, Larry Semon; they were all funnymen--they LOOKED funny. W.C. Fields was never a comedian. Slim Summerville was a comedian, yet looked funny. Now if you have both attributes, you are in good shape. There is a great line between the comic, the comedian, the funnyman, the buffoon and the clown. I don't maybe do everything well--but I know the difference.
- [on Bob Hope] Bob is a joke man. Bob will buy the motion picture rights to Critic's Choice (1963) and then add quite a few dozen one-liners. I think it is a fear of not being able to wait--and not hearing your laugh a second.
- [about versatility in entertainers] There are a lot of comedians who do everything good and nothing great. [Sammy Davis Jr.] as an entertainer does everything good and nothing great. Because there is no Sammy Davis. Sammy is doing Mel Tormé, Billy Eckstine, Billy Daniels, [Frank Sinatra].
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