Quotes

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted.

[when asked what his golf handicap was] My handicap? Man, I am a one-eyed black Jew! THAT'S my handicap!

I'm colored, Jewish and Puerto Rican. When I move into a neighborhood, I wipe it out!

You have to be able to look back at your own life and say, "Yeah, that was fun." The only person I ever hurt was myself and even that I did to the minimum. If you can do that and you're still functioning, you're the luckiest person in the world.

I'm 64 years old, but I feel I've lived the life of a person at 164.

[on Richard Burton] There is nothing he can't do. He is a wonder and a joy to watch.

[on Laurence Olivier] If you had to worship something mortal on Earth, I would go and bow twice a day to wherever Olivier was standing.

[on the death of Martin Luther King Jr.] I asked President [Gregory] Peck to postpone the Academy Awards to show that someone cares. I certainly think any black man should not appear. I find it morally incongruous to sing "Talk to the Animals" while the man who could make a better world for my children is lying in state. The Academy Awards show was delayed two days, until April 10, 1968 in respect for Dr. King.

[on the lifestyle of The Rat Pack in 1958] We gamble. There's nothing else to do in Vegas. Man, it's like Baghdad. You can't sleep. All the chicks are after loot. So you sing, and what else do you do? Sometimes, Dean and Frank sit in for the dealers. It must cost the house $1,000 every time. They see a little old schoolteacher making a bet and they slip her the good cards and let her win big.