But I think the other is a little more like bullfighting, a little more daring and although I appreciate good acting and I liked being versatile my whole career, it kept me working.

I was a class clown.

In the fifties I had dreams about touching a naked woman and she would turn to bronze or the dream about hot dogs chasing donuts through the Lincoln Tunnel.

The Broad research center represents the highest quality model of what Proposition 71 should be funding.

My son has been a class clown and it sort of ran in the family.

But I think the other is a little more like bullfighting, a little more daring and although I appreciate good acting and I liked being versatile my whole career, it kept me working.

So it took me five years because in the interim I have been doing a lot of personal appearances and movies and some television series that went into the plumbing and I stopped writing for a while.

And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.

But to do it professionally is a quantum leap difference and my father had to be persuaded by these kind of Ivy League professors that I should go to the Yale Drama School, another one of the stories in there.

Regis and I were inducted into the original Bronx Walk of Fame.

Comedy is still alive, and there are still funny people. Jews are still overrepresented in comedy and psychiatry and underrepresented in the priesthood. That immigrant Jewish humor is still with us.

I did the first HBO special ever in 1975 at Haverford College. Cable was new then: HBO was a Time-Life entity, with maybe 400,000 or 500,000 subscribers and maybe 50 employees.

I guess I'm pleased and proud of the respect of my peers, and that when I disappear from the scene or from this earth, I will have left a mark. They'll say, 'He did it well.' I like being funny; it opens people up.

I have a work-out regime; I am not a maniac. It sounds cliche, but stand-up comedy, doing a one-man show, helps keep me young, and yes, it is exhausting, but I don't collapse.

I have what we call a 'symphony act.' I'm the only comedian, I think, in the country that does it.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

I was a class clown. My father was a class clown. My son has been a class clown, and it sort of ran in the family.

I was brought up at 3525 Decatur Avenue, in the north Bronx, right next to Woodlawn Cemetery.

I wrote my book 'The Amorous Busboy Of Decatur Avenue' completely like a writer does, writing it down, re-writing everything. But in my stand-up, I improvise initially, never questioning it too closely.

I'm not against profanity. It's an important part of the language when used properly.

My 1974 album 'Mind Over Matter' was a detailed thing about Watergate. I always had some righteous indignation.

One of my greatest inspirations for stand-up was Jonathan Winters. He was a genius. One thing about him, and also Lenny Bruce, is that they were in the tradition of the one-man show. That's why Richard Pryor was so great, and George Carlin, too. They prowled the stage, they used voices, they were really talents.

The '50s were terrifying with nuclear bomb stuff but boring in a social way, and then the '60s were happening, and remember, there was no AIDS.

There are certain families who absolutely incorporate their nanny as part of the family, and there are other people, and there are codes for this, when they call in, they say, 'I am really not looking for a friend.' It is clear they will not be members of the family.

There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.

What makes a good nanny? A good nanny is someone who really wants to do the job. Someone who loves children, who really values what she does and, of course, is valued by her employer.

When I started, there was no comedy community, no comedy industry; there were comedians.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

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.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.