Tragedy is what happens to me; comedy is what happens to you.

You want to be as smart as you can about being stupid.

You often hear that people go into show business to find the love they never had when they were children. Never believe it! Every comic and most of the actors I know had a childhood full of love. Then they grew up and found out that in the grown-up world, you don't get all that love, you just get your share. So they went into show business to recapture the love they had known as children when they were the center of the universe.

Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.

My brothers went to work at 12 and put themselves through school and brought the family out of ruin into food and clothing.

In real life people fart, in the movies, people don't. Why not? Farts are a repressed minority. The mouth gets to say all kinds of things, but the other place is supposed to keep quiet. But maybe our lower colons have something interesting to say. Maybe we should listen to them. Farts are human, more human than a lot of people I know. I think we should bring them out of the water closet and into the parlor.