But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life. I didn't even ask to be famous. All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.

We don't stop going to school when we graduate.

I don't have false teeth. Do you think I'd buy teeth like these?

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.

It's also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. That's why we're here, after all, to help others.

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.

I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.

My interesting diet tips are eat early and don't nosh between meals. I mean, I can pack it away.

I liked myself better when I wasn't me.

My grandmother and I followed my mother here, to a house a block north of Hollywood Boulevard but a million miles away from Hollywood, if you know what I mean. We would hang out behind the ropes and look at the movie stars arriving at the premieres.

Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.

But I don't begrudge anybody, because I know how hard it is to have that dream and to make it happen, whether or not it's just to put a roof over your head and food on the table.

Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.

Because nobody goes through life without a scar.

You know, one wonderful thing that came out of my Enquirer experience is that, in my case, it was ruled tabloids are magazines. Which means they didn't have the protection that a newspaper has.

My grandmother and I saw an average of eight movies a week, double features, second run.

Well, I don't know how astute I am, but I did want to be a journalist when I was growing up.

But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life. I didn't even ask to be famous. All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.

It costs a lot to sue a magazine, and it's too bad that we don't have a system where the losing team has to pay the winning team's lawyers.

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

I don't eat much meat, fish, or poultry.

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

You have to go through the falling down in order to learn to walk. It helps to know that you can survive it. That's an education in itself.

Originally, I came from Texas, and we lived on - I guess you'd call it welfare, what we called relief.

Comedy is tragedy - plus time.

Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.

I never regretted turning down anything, I never regretted losing a job because I always felt something else was out there.

I think the hardest thing to do in the world, show-business-wise, is write comedy.

I was once asked to do my Tarzan yell at Bergdorf Goodman, and a guard burst in with a gun! Now I only do it under controlled circumstances.

I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.

I'm not always optimistic. You wouldn't have all cylinders cooking if you were always like Mary Poppins.

I'm really not that funny in real life! But I am the best audience one could find. I love to laugh.

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.

My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.

On the good days, my mother would haul out the ukulele and we'd sit around the kitchen table - it was a cardboard table with a linoleum top - and sing.

I have always grown from my problems and challenges from the things that dont work out thats when Ive really learned.

When things are a disappointment try not to be so discouraged.

Its also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. Ive been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. Thats why were here after all to help others.

Having a baby is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.

We dont stop going to school when we graduate.

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

The real harm of term extension comes not from these famous works. The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

The people I want are very famous and very rich, and all I can offer them is a bit of exposure on TV and a bit of cash, so it's a miracle we get any guests at all. But we have been very lucky.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

I don't want to be famous famous. I'm happy on the second tier, where I have autonomy on a professional level but I can still go out to the movies without being recognized.

To be famous and broke is hard.

Oh yeah, I was one of the first guys writing comic books, I wrote Captain America, with guys like Stan Lee, who became famous later on with Marvel Comics.