Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.

I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.

I was deeply unhappy, but I didn't know it because I was so happy all the time.

When someone less capable is ahead of me, I am not pleased. It makes me insane.

You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.

It [live performance] is just very difficult. Doing an hour, hour and a half of live standup is an endurance test. You almost have to do it every day to stay up on it.

I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.