Every morning, I would actually look at the obituaries before I had breakfast. And as a joke I said if I was not in it, I would have the breakfast.
The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh.
Even failures can turn into something positive if you just keep going. I wrote a television pilot called 'Head of the Family.' CBS didn't want it. It was considered a failure. But we reworked it. A year later, it became 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'
A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
You can get the best out of people if they're happy and not worried or not frightened that they're going to make a mistake.
Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff.
I served in World War II in our fight to defeat fascism.
If you write, write about what you do and who you are, and you can't be wrong. Don't lie about anything. You are very similar to everybody else in the world. You love, you hate, you have friends, you have enemies. Be who you are.
Everybody wants to laugh - you know that. They need to laugh... people need to laugh.
I've seen the invention of television and performed on television even before my family owned one.
I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed.
I wrote three books about growing up in the Bronx.
There's nothing more satisfying than having an idea and seeing it through to find out that, not only did you like it, but the audience and critics all seemed to agree.
'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid' was my favorite of all the things I ever did, because it was like doing a Sunday crossword puzzle and beating it.
It's one thing for a father to say, 'Oh, my son is great.' But to have others say it - that's the true reward. Robbie's one of the smartest people I know. He's made such fantastic movies.
I figure I'm just one of many people. I'm not that different from anybody else, and I don't have great language, highfalutin' language - I'm very ordinary. So I figure if I write about myself, other people with similar feelings and experiences would go, 'Oh, that's me.'
My parents loved comedies, so we saw Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Ritz Brothers, and the Marx Brothers. I wanted to be one of them.
A fellow who has a funny bone can learn to hone his skills, but I don't think you can develop a funny bone - you either have it or you don't. And by the way - when you get it, we don't know it.
I'm a charming coward; I fight with words.
It's like a bird. If he knew what he was doing, he would fall.
