I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can't get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That's in friendship, that's a deal, that's a commitment. 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.

Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.

I don't want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.

I've had great success being a total idiot.

You can ask me anything you want. That doesn't mean I'm going to answer you.

You want to know why Barbra Streisand is so difficult? Because she's brilliant. She's a brilliant entertainer, she's a brilliant lady, and she's a wonderful human being, and the community doesn't like 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.

Nothing can stop anyone who has a love and passion about their work.

I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have, and I never will.

Most performers are used to the highs and the lows. If you can let a low stop you, that would be a sad commentary.

I have always said that I cannot allow the child within me to die. It's kept me alive.

Gambling is part of the human condition. I love it. I have the best time gambling. I've been winning fortunes, and I've been losing them.

God hadn't made me handsome, but he'd given me something, I always felt: funny bones.

You see, the people that have a point of view and have an opinion and have some intellect are dangerous in the film community - they're dangerous.

You can't be faulted for being selfish if you're going to get better because of it.

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.

The film I did with Bobby De Niro, 'The King of Comedy' - an awful lot came to me out of that movie because De Niro never allowed me any room to be crazy. If I had tried to play it the way I would normally play it and get hysterical, Bobby would punch me.

I was once six feet tall, but at 85, I'm now five feet four.

Love is what makes you dream, and love is what makes you want to get up in the morning. Love is something that you want to be a part of because it makes you better.

Most people are embarrassed to admit there's another human being that's in control of them, that your heart beats three times as fast because you've given yourself to someone else.

I started as a writer. I had the dumb act, but I made my living from writing.

I've never been more than 9 years old.

Going unnoticed has never been my strong suit.

I almost resent being Charley Moviestar. Yeah, I'm grateful. But it takes me away from my kids.

You can't hold comedy back, because it needs to be exposed.

The young man who's had the Guggenheim fortune behind him all his life - he can hire all the authorities on the subject to teach him how to do a monologue, but he's never going to have the right stuff to pull it off. If he doesn't walk out onstage needing to walk out there, he doesn't have a dream of doing well.

I happen to believe in the human condition so strongly that I don't have to make up games to play with people. Here's what I think: If it's good, let's go for it. If it needs work to be better, let's work on it.

When I was onstage doing the work, adrenaline killed the pain because I never hurt in front of an audience.

When you are debilitated, and you're very depressed, and you believe there's no hope, you cannot get a better potpourri of down.

When I was young, I wasn't disciplined at all.

People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.

I almost get annoyed at the fact that I'm not going to use all that I got.

I will do whatever is necessary to make better the stupidity on my part - and therefore go after those who are acting stupid themselves. It's not popular. You don't make friends when you do that. And I couldn't care less.

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 am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.

A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.

I expect people that come to the studio to work to come with the same energy I come with. If I see less than that, I get very strong about, if you want to do this, come with a sense of pride, come with eagerness and anxiety.

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.'

I feel I have been a part of some very wonderful films, and I have had it in mind when I was on the set, every day, that what I am doing has meaning.

When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude; you have to bring a different kind of concentration.

Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.

Getting attention is my business. My whole life's predicated on, 'Hey, look at me!'

The greatest thing I can remember in my whole career was the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey clowns asking me to appear with them at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1965.

There's nothing more dramatic than the comedy I've done. Because the comedy I've done is to get to the audience, get them to feel it, or they won't laugh.

I like to watch all those shows that shouldn't be on the air - reality shows.

I'm sour at times.

I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I'm an entertainer for 75 years.

You think about getting old, but when you get there, it's not what you thought it would be.

From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. From the time I was 21, I've taken them on everything from clay courts to cement to wood floors, coming off pianos, going out a two-story window, landing on Dean, falling into the rough. You do that and you're gonna have problems.

Commercial television has underestimated the intelligence of the public.