They say it's good but I didn't know what I was doing until I got into the suit and they put the moustache on me, and somehow, when I got all the drag on, it came out. It was the most amazing thing. I'm truly extraordinary.

Then I got out of the service, and I was going to be a Shakespearean actor.

And I went to New York and died; for 10 years I walked those pavements. I can't think of New York without feeling uncomfortable and feeling like a failure.

You have to have a certain persona to be a star, you know, and I don't have that. I'm a banana.

I went to the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.

I'm not a star.

I got canceled in the middle of making the pilot.

I wish there was something that - I get all those wonderful letters and wonderful acknowledgments, and I wish I could be more appreciative of what I do. But it's hard for me.

Although in Abbott and Costello, and straight man was first. That's a very interesting concept.

I mean, we had on our show, we had marriages, divorces and other stuff going on. And that was just me.

They say it's good but I didn't know what I was doing until I got into the suit and they put the moustache on me, and somehow, when I got all the drag on, it came out. It was the most amazing thing. I'm truly extraordinary.

But there's a lot of 50's and a lot of boomers and a lot of kids in their 30's that grew up with us.

And it's tough traveling. You know, the hotels and the airports and all that. That part, eating and getting around to the hotel room and then going on.

I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.

You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It's got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff.

Funny is when you're serious.

You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions.

Emotional roller coasters tend to emphasize the lows, tend to be more affected by the low, by the dip in an emotional roller coaster than when you are at the peak.

I am 33 years old, and what can I have been doing that I still am in a muddle? But everyone else is, too; maybe our muddles are concurrent.

That's driven by any number of factors, the most prominent of which have been the combat experience of two major campaigns - one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq - and the ongoing demands of the global war on terrorism.

I want to choreograph, I want to direct, I want to act, I want to write music, I want to play music, I want to sing. For me, it's never-ending. I want to do it all, really.

I like comedy, I mean, in all forms.

In specific circumstances the period of aging decline can set in earlier in a particular organ than in the organism as a whole which, in a certain general or theoretical sense, is left a cripple or invalid.

I have values. But morals are Christian. There's no religion here. Values. Don't hurt when you don't need to, but don't let anybody step over that line - it's an invisible line, but it's respect for somebody's space.

I do enjoy animated movies.

I think most Americans understand that we went through a period in which American leadership was judged quite critically internationally.

When the baby dies, On every side Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud. The baby was not wrapped in any shroud. The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed That men's eyes might not see Her misery.

I tend to write about my anxieties - it's what I'm afraid will happen. And I write a story working it out.

Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.

I try not to think about the trope or whether or not my books are like 'Fifty' or 'Crossfire' or any other series.

Celebrity is a gift. I'm very lucky.

When black women are down with you and in your corner, you have an ally that will move Heaven and Earth.

I'm a very strong woman.

Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what's already there.

The concentration of the elite athlete is akin perhaps to the concentration of the writer.

We're leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth... or couldn't get better jobs in the first place.

The city is like a great house, and the house in its turn a small city.

You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.

We can tolerate our true enemies but not the back stabbers and betrayers.

I will work as hard as I do because I love it.