Comedy is a reflection. We create nothing. We set no styles, no standards. We're reflections. It's a distorted mirror in the fun house. We watch society. As society behaves, then we have the ability to make fun of it.

Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom.

My mother's sister was killed in a trolley car accident, so I was raised as one of eight with my sister and six male cousins.

If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books.

And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.

My mother kept the house clean and we ate good. I didn't know we were poor until I started giving interviews.

When I was in the hospital they gave me apple juice every morning, even after I told them I didn't like it. I had to get even. One morning, I poured the apple juice into the specimen tube. The nurse held it up and said, 'It's a little cloudy.' I took the tube from her and said, 'Let me run it through again,' and drank it. The nurse fainted.