I had known Hal [Needham] for a while by the time he moved in, so I was sure we'd get along well, and we did. He'd go off and do his gigs and I would do mine, and when we were lucky we got to work on the same ones.

The best way not to fail again is to be absolutely positive that when you do it this time, you're going to do it right.

Jay Leno is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people.

Money doesn't buy happiness. It buys great hookers - but not happiness.

I've always gotten along well with Texans. You've got to.

Goldie [Hawn] is one of the sharpest ladies I've ever worked with. She doesn't miss a thing. She's my greatest audience. She laughs at all my stories and in the right places, too.

That's a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I'd rather direct than act, and it's taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that's why I make so many movies; if you don't like this one, another one's opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on 'At Long Last Love,' a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that's too much time out of my life.