Quotes

I don't get no respect, no respect at all!

It's lonely on the top when there's no one on the bottom.

My wife was afraid of the dark, saw me naked, now she's afraid of the light!

I feel sorry for short people, you know. When it rains, they're the last to know.

I'm very lucky. Years ago they had images, like W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, Groucho Marx. But today, I think I'm the only one around with an image. And that image is something everyone identified with. They all feel life treated 'em wrong and they got no respect.

My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.

[on 8/24/04, before entering a Los Angeles hospital for heart valve replacement surgery] If things go right, I'll be there about a week, and if things don't go right, I'll be there about an hour and a half.

[in a 1986 interview, explaining the origin of his "no respect" routine] I had this joke: "I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me". To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: "I was so poor, I was so dumb", so this, so that. I thought, "Now what fits that joke?" Well, "No one liked me" was all right. But then I thought, "A more profound thing would be, 'I get no respect!'."

I told my doctor that when I woke up in the morning I couldn't stand looking at myself in the mirror. He said, "At least we know your vision is perfect."

To give you an idea how well I was doing at the time I quit [he had given up on show business in 1949], I was the only one who knew I quit.

If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.

My dog learned how to beg by watching me through the bedroom door.

I was an ugly child. I got lost on the beach. I asked a cop if he could find my parents. He said, 'I don't know. There's lots of places for them to hide'.

Last week my house was on fire. My wife told the kids, 'Be quiet, you'll wake up Daddy'.

I was ugly, very ugly. When I was born, the doctor smacked my mother.

My mother never breast-fed me. She told me she liked me better as a friend.

At my age, making love is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.

When I get in an elevator, the operator takes one look and says, "Basement?"

Comedy is a camouflage for depression.

I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people.

I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it.

My psychiatrist told me I was crazy, and I said I wanted a second opinion. He said, "Okay, you're ugly, too."

I looked up my family tree and found three dogs using it.

I'm taking Viagra and drinking prune juice. I don't know if I'm coming or going.

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.

My cousin's gay. He went to London only to find out that Big Ben is a clock.

I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

What a kid I've got. I told him about the birds and the bees, and he told me about the butcher and my wife.

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous: everyone hasn't met me yet.

[asked who makes him laugh] My wife, during sex.

To be a comedian you have to get onstage and find out if you're funny.