Dick Van Dyke Quotes

I would love to be Moses.

I'm the anti-Quentin Tarantino.

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility.

I'm gonna keep singing and dancing as long as I can.

Jon Stewart kills me. I love him. And Bill Maher. He does an hour on HBO. But entirely political. It is awfully rough, but he does make me laugh.

Hope is life's essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning

I think both of those: the subject matter, pop culture... the talent, I don't think... there's no Jim Belushi in Saturday Night Live, for me. And probably, you know, possibly the material. They've done everything over the years.

One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy.

Put me on solid ground and I'll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving.

People think I'm talking like I'm in perfect health, but I have all the infirmities for my age. I have arthritis and all those things. But if you keep moving, that won't bother you.

There are tribes all over the world who sing and dance every day as part of their lives. And we oughta do that.

They did ask me to do 'Dancing With The Stars;' I said I can do one show, but on that show you have to come up with a new number every week, and I told them that I think I'm a little past that stage.

Today, if you're not an alcoholic, you're nobody.

Some people never change their mind through their whole lives, about anything, despite new information that comes in. And now that we know that homosexuality is not a choice, it's biological, I think we have to love and understand them.

Once I got a job singing and dancing, a reasonable person might think, "Maybe I should learn how to do this." But no, I never did.

I was the worst game show host that ever lived, and I knew it.

No, no, it was the relationships. That was that group. People believed that Rob and Laura were really married in real life. You know, a lot of people believed that.

I didn't know the answers, but I could feel that the things that gave life meaning came from a place within and from the nurturing of values like tolerance, charity, and community.

Do you know that I was the anchor on the 'CBS Morning Show?' And my newsman was Walter Cronkite.

Anyone who doesn't sing and dance at every opportunity is missing out on the joy of life.

I did a guest shot on a comedy series where they did 20 to 30 takes of everything. It's just gone by then. The joke is over. It's not funny anymore, and then of course, the editor's the one that has to figure out the timing. I think a lot depends on that.

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people.

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance too, but it hurts now!

10 years ago, I would've host Saturday Night Live. But to me, the show has declined. For some reason, humor isn't what it was. It just, to me, it's not as funny as it was, not as sharply satirical.

Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.

I could probably play an alcoholic. I've had some experience with that.

I always loved to dance, but I never had a clue what I was doing.

I get little kids who recognize me from 'Mary Poppins,' and it just delights me because it's our third generation.

I've been talking about retiring for years. It's my standard answer to the question, 'What are your future plans?' The truth is, I'll always want to do things that are worthwhile or fun.

I think there's kind of a wave of nostalgia going on right at the moment. You know, people recall an earlier time, which they see as a better time. And I think we just kind of evoke good thoughts when they look at us. That's the feeling I get.

I played a killer twice. Once on 'Matlock,' on Andy Griffith's show, I got to play the killer.

Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing.

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.'

Everything's getting homogenized. It seems to me like music and behavior and everything else is getting homogenized.

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.

I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.

We spent a lot of time together and had a great time with Mary Tyler Moore. And just working with her was like improv.

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him.

I've made peace with insecurity... because there is no security of any kind.

I decided, when I started having kids, that I'd try not to do anything that I wouldn't be proud for them to see. I've kind of stuck with that, and I don't regret that at all, although I've lost money and passed up a lot of projects because of it. But I feel good about that.

I taught Sunday school when I was younger, and ended up an elder in the church, and it just seemed to me that a lot of people who went to church certainly weren't - the rest of the week - living what I would call an Christian life.

My kids are so much better parent than I was.

I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit.

My brother and I laughed a lot as kids. We came up in the middle of the Depression, and neither one of us knew we were poor. We had nothing, but we didn't know it.

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know.

I never wanted to be an actor and to this day I don`t. I can`t get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.

I would love to see Carl Reiner working in the arena today. He did some marvelous things on our show in the early '60s when it was a little edgy. We did shows about blacks, a couple, three of those. Some thought-provoking stuff.