People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.

People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.

I get paid for what most kids get punished for.

Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!

I've had great success being a total idiot.

I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.

A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.

When I was onstage doing the work, adrenaline killed the pain because I never hurt in front of an audience.

Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.

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.

A lot of people resent that I've been in someone's life for 50 years. Why shouldn't people have an affection for me and what I've done? Didn't I have to be genuine for them to buy into what I did? There are children who grow up today who will not have that when they're 55 years old. With whom will they have it? Name an example for me.

Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.

Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.

From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. From the time I was 21, I've taken them on everything from clay courts to cement to wood floors, coming off pianos, going out a two-story window, landing on Dean, falling into the rough. You do that and you're gonna have problems.

Gambling is part of the human condition. I love it. I have the best time gambling. I've been winning fortunes, and I've been losing them.

I don't want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.

I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can't get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That's in friendship, that's a deal, that's a commitment. Don't give me paper - I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that's for life.

I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.

I need the applause.

I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.

I tell young comics, 'Do you want this badly enough? It's there. But you have to go get it. And if you think I'm going to give you the key to the lock of that door, there is no key, there is no lock, and there is no door.'

I turned down 'Some Like It Hot.' See how smart I am? I felt I couldn't bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don't need to compete with the wardrobe.

If I found the cure for dystrophy tomorrow, I would do a telethon in four weeks for acute pain that in this country is a bigger problem than cancer, heart, sickle cell, anemia, name it. It is - it's hitting 70 million Americans.

Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.

The young man who's had the Guggenheim fortune behind him all his life - he can hire all the authorities on the subject to teach him how to do a monologue, but he's never going to have the right stuff to pull it off. If he doesn't walk out onstage needing to walk out there, he doesn't have a dream of doing well.

When I hit around 65, 66, I started to feel tremendous worth and incredible personal esteem. I was becoming very cognisant of my contribution to the American spirit of helping your fellow man and all of the good stuff.

When I would be myself, I was being big-headed. I was being egotistical. I was a megalomaniac, when it really was just having not to be a monkey for a few hours a day. And fulfilling the need to be a man.

When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon Daddy will you take me to the zoo He answered If the zoo wants you let them come and get you.

Commercial television has underestimated the intelligence of the public.

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.

I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.

Well I would say that we're regular people first of all and we're normal and it's obvious by some of the things that have happened just because our name is famous we're not immune to tragedy.

People are much more inclined to believe and say bad things about you if you're famous.

I don't want to be famous as a movie star and have the whole world love me, I want to be a creative actress.

I like photographing the people I love, the people I admire, the famous, and especially the infamous. My last infamous subject was the extreme right wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.

People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.

My philosophy was, if I just do good work, someone will like it enough to employ me. It never made me famous. And I'm way, way too old now, mate. That boat's sailed.

And I want to be able to - you know, make Republicans and Democrats famous for keeping jobs in California.

I mean he's a very famous director... they're not going to put their... and he's very tough, he doesn't like interference at all, so he kept them at bay.

People should recognize who you are and how you can act rather then how famous you are.

Face it, I didn't become famous until I took my clothes off.