When I was a little boy, I thought when I grew up I would talk Yiddish. I thought little kids talked English, but when they became adults, they would talk Yiddish like the adults did. There would be no reason to talk English anymore, because we would have made it.

My liveliness is based on an incredible fear of death. In order to keep death at bay, I do a lot of "Yah! Yah! Yah!" And death says, "All right. He's too noisy and busy. I'll wait for someone who's sitting quietly, half asleep."

All short women have a delayed fuse. Marry a taller woman: My wife was an inch or two taller than me; it's a sign of security.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.

In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing.

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.

When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I've always felt okay in Berlin.