You, the actor, must be aware of when you're being funny, but the character you're playing should always be oblivious to the fact.

Woody is the guy who made me want to be a comic. I was in heaven and couldn't stop smiling because he was my idle and 29 years after seeing Take the Money and Run, I was working for him.

You, the actor, must be aware of when you're being funny, but the character you're playing should always be oblivious to the fact.

You're in front of an audience, but you're playing for a camera. There's this huge adrenaline rush, because you know that besides the audience in the studio, there are millions of people watching at home.

It's fun to do something funny and have the director laughing. It makes you feel good.

I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.

Anybody can be going from being broke to being wealthy, as I did.

Apparently, I said what a lot of people are thinking and a lot of people have thanked me.

At a certain point, if you work really hard and you get good and people like your work, you do deserve the fame - but you shouldn't take it for granted.

But Opera Man, I go, 'Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of that?' Because I could sing fake opera pretty good.

First of all, this whole idea of this one percent versus the 99 percent, it's a false statistic. There's nobody that is wealthy saying, let's go get the people that aren't. First of all, there's no versus. He's creating a false class warfare in a country where there is no class structure.

I agreed with everything he was saying when he ran for president. I was listening to what he said. I go, this guy thinks like me and I agree with him. Now he's changing. All he keeps saying is millionaires and billionaires don't pay their fair share of taxes.

I didn't take anything from anyone - first of all. Second of all, I opened a comedy club with money that I saved over 25 years. I created jobs.

I do see your point, but to me, I'm just a mouse compared to the President of the United States.

I don't want to talk about myself, that's for other people to say, so I'm not saying I was so talented.

I grew up very nice. But after college, my father said you're on you own. So I was dead broke for years. So I know what it's - I lived on 600 dollars a month for six years. I know what it's like to be dead broke. I feel bad for people who are struggling now.

I had done plays in high school. It was something I always wanted to do since I was little. I was a drama major at UC-Irvine.

I like getting up in front of an audience. It's fun when you go to a baseball game and the crowd is cheering you. I can't deny it. And it's very funny, too. Sometimes you're shy; you go somewhere and everyone's looking at you, so you feel a little self-conscious.

I really didn't want to leave the show, but I got a chance to do a movie, which meant I would have had to miss two shows, and at the time Lorne had a policy where you can't miss shows, so I left.

I would never tell anyone who to vote for. I'm a different kind of 'liberal' and I think people should be true to themselves. If you're Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, you should be true to yourself and be who you are.

I would say if you are having a tough time in your life, then going to a club and getting laughs, it does make you feel better for that hour and a half show. It gets your mind off of it.

If I make a dollar and out of every dollar I'm taxed at 50, half, at 50 cents, I have to give, isn't that like enough?

My dad would always say, 'What can you do to make the world a better place?' Well, I can make people laugh.

Some people, they got housing loans, and I think they're responsible for taking a loan they didn't qualify for?

The problem with the economy isn't that people aren't paying their fair share of taxes.

The whole - it's the economy's bad. It's bad for everybody. I have my own comedy club. I opened it three years ago in a horrible economy. I created jobs. And we just started breaking even after a year and a half, barely. For that entire time, I have had to pay the difference of what we owe in rent and taxes and everything out of my own pocket.

You want everyone to be great and funny. I'm not saying I'm great, but I'm funny.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.