When I appeared before the draft board examiner during World War II, he asked me if I thought I could kill. “I don’t know about strangers,” I replied, “but friends, certainly.”
Marriage is a triumph of habit over hate.
When I was young I looked like Al Capone, but I lacked his compassion.
Talent’s like a baby. Wrap it up in wool and it goes to sleep.
I don’t like to play the piano. It makes me too attractive.
My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day’s first picture; that was before she became a virgin.
Self-pity – it’s the only pity that counts.
I could never have a mistress, because I couldn’t bear to tell the story of my life all over again.
I’m a concert pianist, that’s a pretentious way of saying I’m unemployed at the moment.
An epigram is only a wisecrack that’s played at Carnegie Hall.
Ballet is the fairies baseball.
Harpo, she’s a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.
Debbie Reynolds is as wistful as an iron foundry.
George, if you had to do it all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?
I’m a self-made man. Who else would help?
I never read bad reviews about myself, because my friends invariably tell me about them.
A conductor should reconcile himself to the realization that regardless of his approach or temperament the eventual result is the same-the orchestra will hate him.
I’ve changed, I’m nice to people and I’m not so self-centered. What I’m trying to do now is think of the other person. The only trouble is, I’ve found that the other person thinks only of himself.
I’ve stepped on too many toes on the way down.
I had always resented sleep as an intrusion on my nocturnal self-pity.