Quotes

Hosting a talk show is the easiest job anybody ever had.

Beware of assuming that credentials establish intelligence.

We pride ourselves on the high moral standards of our programmes and I mean that sincerely. We don't resort to sex or crime or violence or drinking...on the programmes.

If my mind ever listened to what my mouth said, I'd have a lot of accounting to do.

Nothing is quite as funny as the unintended humor of reality.

[on Milton Berle] He's been on TV for years and I finally figured out the reason for his success. He never improved.

Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.

Radio is the theater of the mind; television is the theater of the mindless.

If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed.

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders.

I used to be a heavy gambler. But now I just make mental bets. That's how I lost my mind.

The best scene of all really is family life. Why our society insists on making heroes, men or women, out of people that can't stay married and have had 19 women, God is that a stupid reversion of values! Having one wife, staying married to her, that's what we're supposed to do! It works out better with the kids. But the American home began to fall apart seriously I think partly because of the effects of World War II in the 1950s, that's when the Divorce Explosion, as it's called, began.

You probably have noticed that either in the 60's or 1000 years from now or last night, the sons of public figures, sons and daughters of public figures have a decided disadvantage, whether those public figures are presidents, or senators, or movie actors or rock stars, and the reason is very simple: Daddy is on the road a lot. He's out campaigning for office, he's doing a concert in Nashville, and suddenly he looks over his shoulder and 'Oh, Junior's on dope. Well maybe the fact that I didn't see him that much from two to 14 had something to do with that'. You bet it did!

[on growing up during the Great Depression] When you're really poor for a long time, you're a very different human being than when you're middle class or rich. I ran away from home, I was 16 at the time, I bummed around the country for a few weeks, and I literally faced severe hunger. I had seven dollars, they lasted exactly seven days, after that, no money, and pretty quickly that converts into no food. If you knew where there was a soup kitchen I guess you could go there, but I didn't know about that, I was on the road, I didn't know where I was, let alone where other things were. I would beg, very quickly you turn into a beggar, you might think *you* would never do that, but you're wrong, all you have to do is get hungry enough and you'll beg your brains out.

[on traveling the country during the Great Depression at 16 with no money] I ate garbage at one point, you'll do that too and you will thank the universe for the garbage. Boy what a thrill, I found a can with beans, I scooped out the ants, blew them away, and then I ate the nine or ten beans I found there, boy was I happy to find those beans! I was eating garbage and thrilled to do it. So that's very different from the life that we know and since some of us had been through that, then we wanted to be sure that our children *never* went through that. So we tried to build up the little bank accounts and get a car for the wife and a car for us, wash the car ourselves with the hose and the kids. There are many sweet, beautiful aspects of that.

Our culture and society is very good at training people, we train them to pull teeth, to repair automobiles, to paint fences, to do brain surgery, we give them no training literally, in the two most important roles they'll ever be called upon to play, marriage partner and parent. And that you're just thrown into the water, 'Hope you can swim!', 'oh I'm sorry, you're getting divorced, well your kids are sick', and it's happening now in probably half the cases of marriage in this country, it's a tragedy.