I was always very shy but as I get older I think, What am I being shy for? You just grow weary of your own hang-ups.

... you're nuts but you're welcome here.

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.

I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.

I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.

Awards mean nothing to comedians. What matters is the audience, how you're doing - artistically, for the most part - at that moment.

My fear represented the failure of the human system. It is a sad truth of our creation: Something is amiss in our design, there are loose ends of our psychology that are simply not wrapped up. My fears were the dirty secrets of evolution. They were not provided for, and I was forced to construct elaborate temples to house them.