Quotes

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].

[on Clark Gable] The best ears of our lives.