I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I’m an entertainer for 75 years.
When I would be myself, I was being big-headed. I was being egotistical. I was a megalomaniac, when it really was just having not to be a monkey for a few hours a day. And fulfilling the need to be a man.
Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue – nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don’t get into it because I do comedy already.
People think I’m against critics because they are negative to my work. That’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn’t see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don’t tell me about critics.
I have nothing against women. As a matter of fact there’s something about them that I love, but I just can’t put my finger on it.
I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don’t have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.
I think the cartoons that they’re children are watching, particularly ‘The Simpsons,’ they’re OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That’s not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television.
I tell young comics, ‘Do you want this badly enough? It’s there. But you have to go get it. And if you think I’m going to give you the key to the lock of that door, there is no key, there is no lock, and there is no door.’
Make film, shoot film, run film. Do something. Make film. Shoot anything.
When I was onstage doing the work, adrenaline killed the pain because I never hurt in front of an audience.
Don’t you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.
Pity? You don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!
If you’re an old pro, you know how well you’re doing when you’re doing it, and your inner government spanks you if you’re not doing well.
Don’t give me paper – I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that’s for life.
People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.
I don’t want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.
I’ve had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.
When I awoke on Wednesday afternoon, I understood how an amputee must feel.
He watched me breathe. He knew my breath.