When they saw me walking down the street smoking a cigar, they'd say, 'Hey, that 14-year-old kid may be going places.' Of course it's also a good prop on the stage ... When you can't think of what you're supposed to say next, you can puff on your cigar until you think of your next line.

People ask me what I'd most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit.

Love is a lot like a backache. It doesn't show up on x-rays, but you know it's there.

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

I use the cigar for timing purposes. If I tell a joke, I smoke as long as they laugh and when they stop laughing I take the cigar out of my mouth and start my next joke.

Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything that's down can come up.

Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist.