I have been lucky that some critics joined the mob in loving something I've done, or in appreciating it. I've been lucky. But most of the critics don't like what the people like. I think they have a very strange job, and they are meant to criticize.

Not only should we laugh about Hitler. We must laugh about him. Especially in Berlin.

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.

Being short never bothered me for three seconds. The rest of the time I wanted to commit suicide.

My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible. The job is to make people laugh. I don't have a mission. I don't have a torch to burn.

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.

Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help.