What would you do if you were President, and, on the first day of May, the Russian Ambassador presented you with a beautiful cake which emitted a curious ticking noise? Would you plunge it into a pail of water - thus insulting Soviet cuisine in general?

I seldom took a drink on the set before 9 a.m.

You can't cheat an honest man.

The funniest thing about comedy is that you never know why people laugh. I know what makes them laugh but trying to get your hands on the why of it is like trying to pick an eel out of a tub of water.

What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. It was a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an axe.

This job will drive me to drink, and for that reason, I will be eternally grateful.

The work I'm doing on the screen differs from that of anyone else. My comedy is of a peculiar nature...no writers have been developed along the lines of my type of comedy and this is why I sometimes have differences with writers, supervisors and directors alike.