I found a very diabolical way of making myself suffer - not in the same way [my mother ] was suffering but to prevent me from enjoying my own life.

When your mother gives you confidence about anything that you do, you carry that confidence with you.She made me believe that I could make someone laugh.

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.

I was miscast in that production [of Mother Courage and Her Children] ... but it was with Anne Bancroft, whose boyfriend at the time was Mel Brooks, and that made my - I can't say my day, it made my life, in a way.

We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera.

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

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