George Burns Quotes

When you stop giving and offering something to the rest of the world, it's time to turn out the lights.

It's good to be here. At 98, it's good to be anywhere.

I'd rather be a flop at show business than to be a success at something I didn't like.

None of us kids had a middle name. We were lucky we had any name at all. By the time my mother got around to naming one, there was another on the way.

When we played the back end of a horse we always knew that if we worked hard and did a good job we could become the front end.

It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.

My best advice: Fall in love with what you do for a living.

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can't wait to finish your breakfast. You can't wait to do your exercises. You can't wait to put on your clothes. You can't wait to get out. And you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.

I'm at the age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.

When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.

If it's a good script I'll do it. And if it's a bad script, and they pay me enough, I'll do it.

In what other business can a guy my age drink martinis, smoke cigars and sing? I think all people who retire ought to go into show business. I've been retired all my life.

Be quick to learn and wise to know.

I'd rather be over the hill than under it.

Critics are eunuchs at a gang bang.

Being an actor is easy, just picture someone in a room and you outside waiting for your cue to go in. Elliot Gould's been trying that for forty years.

I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere.

She didn't need to go to acting school to learn that the essence of acting is to act like you're not acting.

I love to sing, and I love to drink scotch. Most people would rather hear me drink scotch.

I get a standing ovation just standing

Life's but a day at most.

I did go to school - my kind of school. When I was a kid I went out ... and you meet people. You talk to them. Anybody says something that makes sense, it stays with you, rubs off on you. That kind of school.

Bridge is a game that separates the men from the boys. It also separates husbands and wives.

I look better, feel better, make love better and I'll tell you something else....I never lied better.

If I had taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral.

I would read Playboy more often, but my glasses keep steaming up.

What actresses do today when they appear on the screen is what they did once upon a time for getting to appear on the screen.

Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

Fall in love with what you're going to do for a living. To be able to get out of bed and do what you love to do for the rest of the day is beyond words. I'd rather be a failure in something I love than be successful in something I hate.

Everyday happiness means you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.

I get up every morning and read the obituary column. If my name's not there, I eat breakfast.

When I was in Vegas women were throwing their hotel keys at me. But it was after they checked out.

You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.

I've been a straight man for so many years that from force of habit I repeat everything. I went out fishing with a fellow the other day and he fell overboard. He yelled, Help! Help! Help! so I said, Help? Help? Help? And while I was waiting for him to get his laugh, he drowned.

Young. Old. Just words. Inside we feel like our shoe size.

By [age] 93, I had shrunk quite a lot. My car was known as the Phantom Cadillac. People would see it whizzing by and they would swear there was no driver.

I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

I spent a year in that town, one Sunday.

I smoke ten to fifteen cigars a day. At my age I have to hold on to something.

There are many ways to die in bed, but the best way is not alone.

A married couple that plays cards together is just a fight that hasn't started yet.

If you were married to Marilyn Monroe, you'd cheat with some ugly girl.

I'd say that about 82 percent of what I write is bad, but don't go by me; I'm as bad a judge as I am a writer. Look, if it were all good, you'd be paying twice as much for this book.

Let me get one thing straight; I'm not an authority on sex, I'm more of a fan. I think sex is nice; no family should be without it. Of course, there are other things that are just as important as sex, like uh . . . like uh . . . like . . . uh . . . well, I'll think of it later.

Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman ... or a bad woman.

I don't have a drinking problem. I drink. I get drunk. I fall down, no problem.