Don Rickles

To me, the stand up part in my life is great. I know I can do that. When I get an acting chance, I'm really thrilled.

I have no idea what I'm going to say when I stand up to give a toast. But I do know that anything I say I find funny.

Among my friends, I'm not a little Boy Scout, and they love my humor, thank God.

Ninety percent of the people who come to see me are my fans.

Some people call me a legend and the last of the greats, and I appreciate it.

When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don't mind, but he has it in his back pocket.

When I walk down the street in New York, I swear to God, the building constructor, the guy pounding cement and what not, will yell, 'Hey, you hockey puck!'

Famous people are deceptive. Deep down, they're just regular people. Like Larry King. We've been friends for forty years. He's one of the few guys I know who's really famous. One minute he's talking to the president on his cell phone, and then the next minute he's saying to me, 'Do you think we ought to give the waiter another dollar?'

I've never gone to comedy clubs.

When you stand alone and sell yourself, you can't please everyone. But when you're different, you can last.

Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap.

The average person pushes an elevator button 6 or 7 minutes before realizing it's not working. I did a study on this, you know.

I don't care if the average guy on the street really knows what I'm like, as long as he knows I'm not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I'm really like. That's what's important.

If something strikes me as funny, I'll put it in my performance.

Now when I'm not working, I don't really hang out with the young comics.

After I graduated, I tried Broadway, which was difficult for me. It was tough to get a part on Broadway, so I just started talking to audiences at different social gatherings, and little by little I became Don Rickles - whatever that is.

I was 28 when my father died, and I was an only child.

I've been hot, I've been lukewarm, I've been freezing, but I've always been a headliner.

You can't study comedy; it's within you. It's a personality. My humor is an attitude.

I don't walk into a dinner party and say, 'You're an idiot; give me my coat.'

You've got to be able to sell yourself.

You know what's funny to me? Attitude.

My mother was a Jewish General Patton.

Some people say funny things, but I say things funny.

I was in World War II; I cried when they took me in the Navy. That's the last time I cried.

It takes many years to be a great comedian.

My whole act is off the top of my head.

I have a problem, if the light goes on on TV and it blinks midnight, I don't know how to fix it.

Room service is great if you want to pay $500 for a club sandwich.

I ride a recumbent bike for half an hour every day.

Las Vegas is the boiling pot of entertainment.

Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke one bit of humor.

My father was an insurance man and a small-time gambler. He was a good man, but he had an eye for the racehorses, and I saw how it used to bother my mother. I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all those years in Vegas.

My life was in Montreal years ago. Best food in the world.

Struggling is hard because you never know what's at the end of the tunnel.

To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.

Even when I was in high school and the Navy, I was the guy who could rip somebody, and they'd laugh at it.

I was always the guy - out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.

I don't like to compare myself with anybody.

It's very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that.

I was nice to the people in the Philippines for the two and a half years I was there, because I knew eventually I'd have to kiss up to them so my grandchildren could have toys.

Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.

I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He'd just pick up the couch and walk out of the room.

I always say, when you're onstage you can't please everybody. I'm sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that's okay. Thank God the majority are in my corner.

If I have learned anything, it is to keep my wife happy by sending her lavish gifts. Other men can learn from my success and send their wives and girlfriends fresh flowers for birthdays, anniversaries, and of course, Valentine's Day.

Every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend!

I stopped smoking. But my personality I still have. I get up in the morning, and not everybody loves me, so if you want to call that a bad habit, there's that.

You throw your best punch, otherwise don't do it.

Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities.

I told jokes badly.

Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke, one bit of humor.

Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I'm not a black.

I've been to Philadelphia a lot of times over the years, playing the old Celebrity Room and most of the other clubs around there that don't exist anymore.

Compared to what some of the young comics use for material today, I'm a priest.

I enjoy mixed audiences, not one particular group. Short, tall, scientists, Jews, gentiles, whatever, as long as they breathe and like to laugh.

I'm very shy so I became very outgoing to protect my shyness.

The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now.

Bob Newhart, who is my best friend, is one of the guys I adore.

Political correctness? In my humor, I never talk about politics. I was never much into all that.

I still have drive, but everything is relative.

The young comedians always ask me, 'What's the secret for staying around?' I tell them, 'There is no secret - just stay around. Longevity is the most important thing.'

I want to be a dog, but I'm a pussycat.

I write my own tweets.

When I got out of high school, I wanted to be an actor but was getting a lot of rejections. I was getting rejected by life. My mother, God rest her soul, told me not to quit.

I was a mother's boy.

Johnny Carson was a big influence on me - all of those shows I did with him over the years, like, 100 of them, they made a bit of a name for me at the time, so that part of my life was very good.

An insult is mean or unkind. Milton Berle called me the Sultan of Insult, and I was called the King of Insult. But the guy that gave me the best title - and I use it to this day - was Johnny Carson. He called me Mr. Warmth.

Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib.

I have to have energy because I have a lot of expenses. A couple of cars, couple of dogs and a big estate.

My grandchildren just know me now as Mr. Potato Head.

I cannot tell a joke. But I can do a situation, that it becomes a joke.

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

I didn't get married until I was 38.

My wife, Barbara, is great. She arranges when I do work that I have a day off between performances.

Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.

To this day, when I say that I went to the American Academy, people are very impressed. The reputation of the school has always been fantastic.

You lose your energy, you lose that excitement and it gets the audience up.

I say things I get away with, and it becomes a joke.

I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.

I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I'd better write a book.

I've never had a written script.

I never went out looking for glory.

I do situations and make fun of authority and life.

My wife came into my life, and my mother still wanted to be the boss.

When I'm onstage, I'm acting.

I have my own gym. When you do jokes and they sell, you get a gym.

I'd like to think my performance is today. I never try to - it's so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.

No matter where you go in this world, you will always find a Jew sitting in the beach chair next to you.

In the 45 years I've worked in casinos, I dreamed of being honored by an organization like the American Gaming Association, especially since I don't even have a hunting license.

When you first start out with something new, you're always a little uptight.

Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones.

When you do comedy, you can't please the world, although I'd like to think that most of my audiences were on my side.

In our day we went from - we went into saloons. We couldn't cross over like you can today, get a television series and all of a sudden you're a major movie star, you know.

I'm not one of those guys who wants to die on a stage.

Sinatra was somebody special.

Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?

Well, I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.

The man I adored, and miss him terribly, was Johnny Carson.

Everything I've ever done in my whole career, people might not know, I've never written anything down on paper.