I’m not a classically trained actor. I’m not a product of Stavlovski method or anything like that.

I don’t have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, ‘Has Bob read ours yet?’

I would say I came from upper middle class family.

I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that.

I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda – and I’m just talking about the male actors – there aren’t...

I certainly don’t delude myself that there aren’t certainly more important things to do in life than make people laugh, but I can’t imagine anything that would bring me more joy.

I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.

All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.

What you see on stage is pretty much the way I am… a dry sense of humor.

Dick Martin, if you put a gun to his forehead, he couldn’t tell you a joke.

For some reason, comedians are still children. The social skills somehow never reach us, so we say exactly what we think without weighing the results.

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.