Well I was much too practical to presume to have a career in comedy.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you’ve got to be in control.

I’m not what you’d call a Method actor.

I don’t know how doctors pick one specialty over another. Some you can understand. Pediatricians. Or gynecologists delivering babies, bringing a new life into the world, but how does someone want to be a proctologist?...

I didn’t know I was cool, but I was very flattered that some of the younger comedy writers came up to talk to me at the Emmys. I found that gratifying.

I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn’t work, then I knew it didn’t work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn’t...

I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That’s the only way you learn how to do it.

Don’t live in the past. There’s no point. You can’t change anything. What a waste of time.

All I can say about life is, ‘Oh God, enjoy it!’

I don’t have a stack of scripts.

I found the most difficult thing when you became successful – when I had the record album, it won Album of the Year – that you were cut off from the source of your material....

I think there’s a little confusion between humor and ‘gross’ passing for humor. That’s kind of regrettable, because they aren’t the same thing.

The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.

It’s kind of hard coming from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ which is a sketch-driven show, to a movie.

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.

If you look at Jack Benny, George Burns, or Don Rickles, they’ve all had long, successful marriages. So, I think there’s something about laughter and the durability of a marriage.

I’ve always said people say on a dramatic show, ‘I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.’...

I’m very open to the up-and-comers.

It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.

Humor’s a weapon if you want to make it one.

If ‘The New York Times’ says it, it must be true.

I left ‘The Bob Newhart Show,’ which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.

There is an edginess in my work that people don’t always recognize.

The greatest comedian I’ve ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn’t afraid of the silences.

There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and ’60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.

I was never a Certified Public Accountant… I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a Certified Public Accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not...

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.

One time I happened to use the word ‘denigrate’ onstage, and it didn’t get any reaction. So as I continued my act, the left side of my brain was fast-forwarding to see if I had...

I’ve been a very lucky actor.

Comedians are never really on vacation because you’re always at attention… that antenna is always out there.

I have an aversion to laugh tracks – the moment I hear a laugh track, I go to another channel.

When I was off TV, people would ask me to please come back, which I think was their way of saying, ‘There’s nothing out there for us.’

I loved ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.

I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though you’re poking fun at someone or something, there’s still an affection for it.

‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever.

Without great writing, you’ve got a bunch of actors bumping into each other.

I’ve been told to speed up my delivery when I perform. But if I lose the stammer, I’m just another slightly amusing accountant.

Well, my career choice made a difference because I never would have met my wife, Jenny. I met her through comedian Buddy Hackett. He set us up on a blind date and then we got...

Probably the best advice I ever got in my life was from the head of the accounting department, Mr. Hutchinson, I believe at the Glidden Company in Chicago, and he told me, ‘You really aren’t...

People have told me, ‘My dad passed on, but I have great memories of watching your shows with him.’ It doesn’t get any better than that.

Sometimes you forget you’re famous. You wonder, ‘Why is that person staring at me?’

I just don’t think most people put myself and Robert Frost in the same category.

Don’t be silly and don’t waste your time.

Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn’t afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.

When I first started out, ‘Time’ magazine did an article on what it called ‘the sick comics,’ and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were...

I was not influenced by Jack Benny, and people have remarked on my timing and Jack’s timing, but I don’t think you can teach timing. It’s something you hear in your head.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don’t necessarily want to be alive.

I remember seeing a movie with Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney where they were husband and wife, and they got in bed, and he had on polka-dot pajamas and she had on striped pajamas, and...

With the stand-up comic on TV, whether it’s Seinfeld or Cosby or Roseanne, more important than their knowledge of how to tell a joke is their knowledge of themselves, or the persona they’ve created as...

The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you’re just breaking in and that’s working, and that’s – you’re one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience...