At first, I didn't realize it was gonna be a character. I just thought I was gonna be doing me.

Even though the National Guard and Army Reserve see combat today, it rankles me that people assume it was some kind of waltz in the park back then.

Drugs scared me.

I wanted to make a living, but I really was not interested in money at all. I was interested in being a great comedian.

Every relationship is just so tenuous and precarious.

I guess I still feel that I'm a comedian; if I had to pick one thing that I feel like I could do, it would be that. That doesn't mean that I like it, but I feel that's what I am.

Sure, being a reservist wasn't as glamorous, but I was the one who had to look at myself in the mirror.

I just feed off the energy of the audience.

I'm a walking, talking enigma.

When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.

Millions of people are married. I've never picked up a paper and seen a headline that says, Man Gets Married!

Until I started doing standup, there were some very bleak days.

Even back then, I exuded self-confidence, and that drives women crazy.

Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.

Trying on pants is one of the most humiliating things a man can suffer that doesn't involve a woman.

It began to dawn on me that perhaps my country needed me more at home than overseas.

In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year.

I couldn't be happier that President Bush has stood up for having served in the National Guard, because I can finally put an end to all those who questioned my motives for enlisting in the Army Reserve at the height of the Vietnam War.

I was planning on my future as a homeless person. I had a really good spot picked out.

Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man - there's your diamond in the rough.

It has to do - I think - with growing up in an apartment, with my aunt and my cousins right next door to me, with the door open, with neighbors walking in and out, with people yelling at each other all the time.

If you tell the truth about how you're feeling, it becomes funny.

Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Jewish.

You write about what you know.

I think that for the most part, when I started doing comedy, it had become very commercialized.

I'm really only happy when I'm on stage. I just feed off the energy of the audience. That's what I'm all about - people and laughter.

I don't think anyone really is interested in reading about my emotional state. It's not even interesting to me.

I've led this empty life for over forty years and now I can pass that heritage on and ensure that the misery will continue for at least one more generation.

I learned the first night that IHOP's not the place to order fish.

The only change I can really see is that I don't have to shop for pants in stores anymore.

It's not every day that you get to be affectionate around something, it just doesn't happen that often.

I just wanted laughs - that's really what I was after.

There are times when I'm driving home after a day's shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would've been so much better if I had written it out.

Women love a self-confident bald man.

It's that I wasn't suited to do the kind of comedy that these people were coming to hear - mainstream comedy.

When you're not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom.

Hear the birds? Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm deaf and I try to imagine what it's like not to be able to hear them. It's not that bad.

Well, as you know, I'm really only happy when I'm on stage.

At first, I didn't realize it was gonna be a character. I just thought I was gonna be doing me.

Actually I walk around with the Emmy wherever I go, but I'm very casual about it.

I had a job as a paralegal. I drove a cab.

Most of the time I'm thinking, I'm glad that scene was improvised.

And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.

I was very fortunate to hook up with Jerry in the first place. The network was already committed to doing something with him, so I skipped a couple of hundred steps right there.

There's a sense of spontaneity, and no emphasis on jokes in this show. People generally talk the way they talk in life if you were in this particular situation.

I tell people that I've now done one decent thing in my life. Albeit inadvertently.

All of a sudden I discovered that I'm allergic to caviar. It was the perfect metaphor for my life. When I was only able to afford bad caviar, I could certainly eat my fill of it.

Anything that's for free, people will take. They don't discriminate.

Anytime I'm involved with anything that's well-received, it's a surprise to me.