Sheer flattery got me into the theater. Flattery always works with me, particularly the flattery of women.

Sheer flattery got me into the theater. Flattery always works with me, particularly the flattery of women.

Both my brothers became physicians and I, of course, wandered into a business where the undisciplined are welcome.

I have heard show business characterized as a refuge for childlike persons in flight from all things harsh and real.

Nations have come under the control of haters and fools.

Talent can be developed, gift is God-given. But artists have both.

Those offers come in now and again. They're not knocking down my door. I'm only an old character actor, and I'm not needed.

Half the pictures directed by men of reputation fail.

One irreducible residual of 38 years in the business is the number of lasting, loving friendships I have made.

In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards.

It seems that entertainment is what most excites us and what we value above everything else.

My Irish derivation has nothing to do with me. Why should it?

Conventional show-biz savvy held that Americans hated to be the objects of satire.

Vulgar and obscene, the papers run rumors daily about people in show business, tales of wicked ways and witless affairs.

My professional life in Hollywood has been filled with joy and laughter.

The wages of pedantry is pain.

I'm lucky. Lord, I'm lucky.

Not all celebrities are dunces.

I enjoyed in every way my 12 years of playing Archie, and I wasn't personally sad about finishing a long job.

I hate pride, but if I were going to be proud of anything it would have to be something I'd done myself. Race pride is kind of stupid.

Millions of people thought Archie was a happy hero.

The reviewer is a singularly detested enemy because he is, unlike the hapless artist, invulnerable.

All in the Family was intellectual; it was art.

It was a lack of system that made the '30s Depression as inevitable as all others previously suffered.

We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.

I've run into some S.O.B. directors, but I gave them back as good as I got.

I do talk less now because the sound of my voice saying over and over the things I said years ago embarrasses and depresses me. Why do I say the same things over and over?

Even a true artist does not always produce art.

Some people thought we were presenting Archie as a false character. President Nixon thought we were making a fool out of a good man.

Sheer flattery got me into the theater. Flattery always works with me, particularly the flattery of women.

A woman's flattery may inflate a man's head a little; but her criticism goes straight to his heart, and contracts it so that it can never again hold quite as much love for her.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself.

Imitation is the sincerest flattery.

Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

Flattery in courtship is the highest insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take from you what you really have.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

Advertising - a judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Said I was beautiful, did he? He's being paid for treatment, not flattery.

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.

To ask advice is in nine cases out of ten to tout for flattery.

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

This flattery has been rather slow in coming. I think all of sudden late in life now I'm getting some credit for what I've done. Which is gratifying, but it's kind of a little late.