Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.
The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can't destroy it.
You shouldn't get too close to the truth, because then maybe you stop being funny.
Women are more emotional. They do get flustered. Which is not to say that men are better than they. It's simply the way it is.
I kind of do it in my head, then I'll try pieces of it on stage and if it looks promising, I'll put it together.
When you're going for a joke, you're stuck out there if it doesn't work. There's nowhere to go. You've done the drum role and the cymbal clash and you're out on the end of the plank.
I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though youre poking fun at someone or something, theres still an affection for it.
I'm most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don't have that, you really don't have very much.
I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That's the only way you learn how to do it.
Don't be silly and don't waste your time.
I worked in accounting for two and a half years, realized that wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and decided I was just going to give comedy a try.
When I started out in 1960, I thought it might possibly last a couple of years. I never expected it to last 42. I take great satisfaction in that longevity.
More and more, as I get older, people come up to me and say, 'Thank you for all the laughter.' And my standard answer is, 'It was my pleasure.' But that's the truth.
I was never a Certified Public Accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. It would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.
I wasn't much good. When I went into the line on a fake - I would holler 'I don't have it!'
Comedians are never really on vacation because you're always at attention... that antenna is always out there.
In today's world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I'm not sure that isn't true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don't know what that would have done to my psyche.
Sometimes you forget you're famous. You wonder, Why is that person staring at me?
Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright. My own private theory is that stammerers have so many ideas swirling around their brains at once that they can't get them all out, though I haven't found any scientific evidence to back that up.
One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.
One of the first things that you learn as a stand-up is, you're the boss. It's your stage, and don't screw with me because I'll make you look bad, which I had to do, because you wind up with drunks and loud people.
You never know when you'll come upon something and it's going to be fodder for new material.
I've been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.
Every new routine I have ever written and performed probably occurred extemporaneously. Then after you have fleshed it out and tried it out in front of a number of audiences and it works, you put it down on paper.
There's a lot of cynicism. Let's really enjoy Christmas, with all that's going on in the world.
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