But a funny thing happened four years later. I was invited to play for an alumni team against the Red Wings.

With me serving as the president, we filed a $3-million lawsuit against the league and its member clubs in an attempt to win increased pension benefits and a larger share Of television revenue.

They thought we were going to hurt the game, but we just wanted to help ourselves, because the players needed to get together to protect their interests.

The owners and managers were too stupid to realize we had brains.

A series of rumors about my attitude, as well as derogatory remarks about myself and my family showed me that the personal resentment of the Detroit general manager toward me would make it impossible for me to continue playing hockey in Detroit.

Some nights, I was so good that I could have become an egotist.

When it was my turn, I just skated out and heard this huge cheer. It was very touching considering the bad circumstances under which I had left the team and that I had been away for four years.

I love people and I love to be around people.

I had the idea that I should beat up every player I tangled with and nothing ever convinced me it wasn't a good idea.

But a funny thing happened four years later. I was invited to play for an alumni team against the Red Wings.

Starting that union was something I believed in very strongly.

I liked playing in Chicago, and I gave them everything I had, but I knew in my heart I was a Red Wing.

I had that flying wheel tattooed on my forehead and on my butt.

After three years in Chicago, I decided to call it a career.

By 1946, I knew Detroit was the best hockey city in the Original Six.

I watch a lot of hockey. There are some good hockey players and there are some awfully stupid hockey players.

My penalty for rocking the boat was being traded.

What you had at the time was a dictatorship with the team owners.

At 39, I was back in a Red Wings uniform and loving it.

Through the years, I have so many wonderful memories of playing with the Red Wings: winning four Stanley Cups, scoring big goals, going into battle every night side by side with my teammates, playing with every ounce of effort I could muster.

It's funny, 'cause it seems like just yesterday that I was the youngest player just starting out. But now there are young players all over the league, and they'll ask me questions about playing overseas or finding an agent.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

You amaze me. You're 229 years old and that's what you think is funny.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

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.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

I had an idea of what I thought was funny. It's kind of based on how I am.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

So to me, Texas Hold 'em puts me to sleep. At least when you play stud, you can be funny as you deal. Somebody some day is going to come up with a Stud show that's going to work.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

It's funny how sometimes how the public some people think I was born like this. That I maybe I sleep and I do big muscle, but its a lot of work to look like this and to be in this kind of condition.

I think back to some of the things Harry said and some of the things I said trying to be funny. If I said them now, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Shirley MacLaine said, You're so funny, then gave me a hug. Everything went white. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see. I thought I was going to pass out.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

I remember interviewing someone I actually felt bad for, and therefore didn't want to take an ironic stance against him. It actually turned out to be a really funny piece.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

I don't think know if anything's going to translate anywhere. You're making a movie, you hope it's going to be funny, you can't think about how it's going to go over.

Eddie Drake is sort of this loose cannon, funny, edgy guy, who has this really foolish, foolish mustache.

I'm doing a very funny show in which we talk about issues. I speak at Aids charities and things. It's great to do something fun with our days and yet we're told we're doing something important.

I do not think that obsession is funny or that not being able to stop one's intensity is funny.

I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they've done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.