I met Richard Pryor for the first time in Calgary, in Canada. A very quiet, modest meeting.

Gene Wilder often said that his job as an actor wasn't to make something funny but to make it real.

When you please your mother by doing something, it gives you confidence that you can please other people.

I'm in complete remission. I'm alive and well.

My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.

[ Zero Mostel] would tell anyone anything, not to be impolite, but he'd show that he wasn't at all afraid of however much money that person [had] or whatever title they had in a company. It didn't scare him. Mel [Brooks] was very much the same way.

I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track. But yes, I don't like to get Maudlin. And I have a tendency towards it.