I ride a recumbent bike for half an hour every day.

Room service is great if you want to pay $500 for a club sandwich.

I shouldn't make fun of the blacks: President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.

Compared to what some of the young comics use for material today, I'm a priest.

In our day we went from - we went into saloons. We couldn't cross over like you can today, get a television series and all of a sudden you're a major movie star, you know.

I don't like to compare myself with anybody.

Famous people are deceptive. Deep down, they're just regular people. Like Larry King. We've been friends for forty years. He's one of the few guys I know who's really famous. One minute he's talking to the president on his cell phone, and then the next minute he's saying to me, 'Do you think we ought to give the waiter another dollar?'

I have to have energy because I have a lot of expenses. A couple of cars, couple of dogs and a big estate.

We were Orthodox Jews, but we really didn't deserve it. I mean, bacon - my father said, 'Don't put bacon in the house,' but we had bacon. We didn't keep kosher. And we observed which today would be Conservative Jews. But in those days, we belonged to an Orthodox temple. So we made out we were Orthodox Jews, but we really weren't.

Somehow, in my head, I don't think I'll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it'll never come to me. It's crazy, but there it is.

You got to have a lot of courage. Secondly, whatever it is you're doing, you have to believe in it wholeheartedly. Thirdly, you have to be able to stand up in front of people and know that they'll laugh.

Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib.

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

When I was a younger guy doing comedy, it was a big struggle. Promoters canceled me out of clubs left and right when I called somebody a dummy or a yo-yo. Then they realized I was different.

My mother was a big influence. She kept pushing me because I was very shy and inhibited. And schoolwork was very difficult for me because I couldn't concentrate. I was failing almost every subject. To this day, I'm not too good at reading a book. But I was the president of my high school comedy group, and they treated me like a king.

An 'insult comic' is the title I was given. What I do is exaggeration. I make fun of people, at life, of myself and my surroundings.

I was a big shot in high school - big into social events and at the dramatic society - and I always had trouble in school. Not because I was a dummy, but I was always busy being the Jackson Heights clown.

I don't walk into a dinner party and say, 'You're an idiot; give me my coat.'

I've been hot, I've been lukewarm, I've been freezing, but I've always been a headliner.

I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I'd better write a book.

Some people say funny things, but I say things funny.

Bob Newhart, who is my best friend, is one of the guys I adore.

I still have drive, but everything is relative.

The thing I love about Vegas is that it's a melting pot. It's like working Ellis Island.

Many, many years ago, I stood on the stage and told bad jokes and did Sophie Tucker as an impersonation, and nobody looked up; and suddenly, I looked down and said, 'Sir, I'm getting fed up with you. Either you watch, or I'm going to suck your neck,' or words to that effect, and suddenly people started to laugh.

Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

I'm not one of those guys who wants to die on a stage.

You've got to be able to sell yourself.

It's very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that.

Now when I'm not working, I don't really hang out with the young comics.

I've never gone to comedy clubs.

I spent two and a half years in the Philippines in World War II.

Funny is funny.

Every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend!

Among my friends, I'm not a little Boy Scout, and they love my humor, thank God.

Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I'm not a black.

I enjoy mixed audiences, not one particular group. Short, tall, scientists, Jews, gentiles, whatever, as long as they breathe and like to laugh.

I never went out looking for glory.

To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.

Well, I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.

When I'm onstage, I'm acting.

I was a mother's boy.

I do situations and make fun of authority and life.

I mean, in my - and I'm not trying to do spilled milk, but in those days it was a little - I think it was much tougher, because you got an image, and you were in a saloon. And it was tough to come out of a saloon and to get in films, and to maintain an image, you know.

I told jokes badly.

I cannot tell a joke. But I can do a situation, that it becomes a joke.

To me, the stand up part in my life is great. I know I can do that. When I get an acting chance, I'm really thrilled.

I was always the guy - out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.

When I got out of high school, I wanted to be an actor but was getting a lot of rejections. I was getting rejected by life. My mother, God rest her soul, told me not to quit.

My father was an insurance man and a small-time gambler. He was a good man, but he had an eye for the racehorses, and I saw how it used to bother my mother. I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all those years in Vegas.