I met Mel [Brooks] backstage in Anne's [Bancroft] dressing room. He was wearing one of those pea coats, pea jackets that were made famous by the Merchant Marines, and I admired it and he said, "You know, they used to call this a urine jacket, but it didn't sell."

If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier

As they say in Corsica... Goodbye!

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

I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.

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.

A lot of comic actors derive their main force from childish behavior. Most great comics are doing such silly things; you'd say, 'That's what a child would do.