Quotes

[interview with Robert DeRossi, 10/27/65] I don't want to change the thinking of the world. My purpose is to make people laugh . . . It would be hypocritical if I said I don't want recognition, but I've never wanted it terribly. I think I'm being honest when I say I'd rather turn my talents, whatever they are, to writing and directing.

In restaurants, [people] send over shoes. I'm so tired of it. I keep getting shoes.

I hate performing. I don't care about being thought funny; I never did. Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all. I did movie star impressions as a kid in high school. Somehow they just got out of hand.

[on Get Smart (1965)] The first few episodes I saw angered me so much I felt like throwing the TV through a window. I couldn't stand the laugh track . . . I didn't think so when I was making them, but some of those episodes are funny, funny shows. Some are classics. I actually laugh out loud at them now.

I'm no longer independently wealthy. I guess it's the result of too many wives, too many kids and too much alimony. I've been paying alimony since I was 14 and child support since 15. That's a joke, but not by much.

I like getting married, but I don't like BEING married.

[on his trademark clipped voice] It was Bill ([Bill Dana] who was primarily responsible for me using that voice. Right from the beginning, he said, "You should do all your routines in that voice". And I said, "But I can't stand that voice". And he said, "But it's funny. It makes people laugh". And I'm, like, "But I hate it . . . ". For whatever reason, the delivery or whatever it is, that voice makes any situation funnier.

[on Jim Carrey] I'm not turned on by a comedian who bends over, spreads his cheeks and speaks out of his rear end.

I watched Seinfeld (1989) and didn't know what the show was about. It was about nothing!

[on Get Smart (1995) and Andy Dick] I knew it wouldn't work but they offered me a lot of money. I knew after the pilot that this kid couldn't carry the show.

I am a quick study - I can memorize a script in an hour - but I can't remember a name three seconds. I've even forgotten my wife's name on occasion.

[on his character Maxwell Smart]: Maxwell is serious, dedicated, awkward, forgetful, pompous to a certain degree, sentimental.

I was married awfully young and I felt trapped. My wife had been divorced and all the time we were married we were out of the Church. It wasn't until we were divorced that we became good Catholics again.

[2002, on his and Barbara Feldon's 'Get Smart' characters]: What it really came down to was that women are intelligent and men are stupid.I was the dummy, and she was the smart one. So there you are. I don't mind -- I made a lot of money.