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

I regret that I do not have the dignity of Ricardo Montalban, the class of Dean Martin, or the humor of Bill Cosby. I do have the heart of a lion.

If you hold on to things long enough, they get back into style. Like me.

I love Stroker Ace. I love the whole team. Jim Nabors really stole the show, and Ned Beatty, well I've made more of my movies with Ned Beatty than anybody else.

If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I'm either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheotomy just before the nominations.

The moment you grab someone by the lapels, you're lost.

Smokey and the Bandit was the first picture [Hal Needham ] directed, and I knew he could handle it. I had just directed Gator, and he saw my style and used that as a pattern.