I have a disturbing problem with losing things. My vulnerability to loss-distress could properly be labeled not only inordinate, but neurotic.
I don't think anyone ever gets over the surprise of how differently one audience's reaction is from another.
There were several things a Yale freshman was supposed to be able to do. You had to demonstrate in the Olympic-size Yale pool that you could swim 50 yards or be inducted into swimming class.
Every student of comedy should see Dame Edna at least twice.
The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored.
My dream was maybe someday, one night I can be a guest on a talk show, and then I will have achieved everything I want.
To call New York's traffic at holiday time a nightmare is to understate.
By the time I was in the fourth grade, I sounded exactly like my father on the phone.
Teaching is an art and a profession requiring years of training.
The greatest benefit of depression is the fact that when I have talked about it, every so often someone comes up and says, 'You saved my dad's life.'
Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it's painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it's extremely painful.
Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect for I, also?'
The Nixon administration kept a nasty eye on our show... Cops would come by - often just in time to see the act they wanted to see.
I have yet to see one of those Comedy Central shows with multiple standup comics that doesn't include someone the size of the Hindenburg.
Radio, which was a much better medium than television will ever be, was easy and pleasant to listen to. Your mind filled automatically with images.
Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.
Show people tend to treat their finances like their dentistry. They assume the man handling it knows what he is doing.
Can you picture yourself at the age 60 doing what you do now?
I think I'd be pretty easy to write for.
I'm not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.
