I can understand the drug thing. So they feel that it's more important to take the drugs than to do a good show for the people.

I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.

I knew I wanted to be in show business so I took the path of least resistance. I loved comedy. But you never know you are funny until people laugh. It's just what I was interested in. I could make people laugh, I guess, but doing it at school and doing it onstage are very different things.

In a strange way, I don't have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands. When I do work, it might be very concentrated, and it might be months where you're not really doing anything except maybe playing the banjo or writing something. You know, there's a lot of time in the day if you're not working 9 to 5.

[her] mind blackens. The blackness is not a thought, but if it could be pressed into a thought, if a chemical from a dropper could be dripped onto it causing its color and essence to become visible, it would take the shape of this sentence: Why does no one want me?

I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.

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.