My major contribution to the format was to suggest that I be able to step out of the plot and speak directly to the audience, and then be able to go right back into the action. That was an original idea of mine; I know it was because I originally stole it from Thornton Wilder's play Our Town.

This is all so exciting I've decided to keep making one movie every 36 years.

Sex can be fun after eighty, after ninety, and after lunch!

I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries.

Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.

Much later in life, though, Gracie made a major contribution to the opera world. She stayed out of it.

I'm onstage for an hour.I do an hour of stand-up. Actually, I do 10 minutes standing up and 50 minutes sitting in a chair. Oh, occasionally, I stand up again to do a dance or put over a song. But mostly I sit down. A great invention, sitting down.