Things have always sort of happened for me. Something else always comes up.

Things have always sort of happened for me. Something else always comes up.

The fun part for me is to just really push that envelope.

That's my opportunity to hide behind that old lady and say what I want to say.

Even though I was in close proximity to everything, it never really dawned on me to pursue a career in show business.

Everybody just told me from the day I went into high school that I looked like Carol Burnett.

Everyone has a crazy old lady in their family like 'Mama.' No one ever comes up to me and says 'Mama' is just like them, so no one is ever offended by her. Even young people like to laugh at her. I think she helps kids appreciate their own grandmothers more.

I always tell people I went to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.

I didn't plan on going into show business. Show business picked me. And it's been fun. One of the best things about being in show business is people think they know me, and they feel like they grew up with me.

I do love pasta. It gets me into trouble. If I could give up pasta and bread, I'd look like Cate Blanchett.

I feel like my life has been very serendipitous and really kind of humorous. Everything that's happened to me has been like an, 'Omigod, are you kidding me?'

I never intended to be in show business; I intended to be an extremely grounded person.

I often feel like I could fall off the face of the Earth. As long as 'Mama' was around, nobody would really miss me. People really think of her as an actual person. People all the time see me and ask, 'Where's Mama?' Like she should be with me.

I think the older you get, the more 'let's cut to the chase' you get, 'let's quit quibbling about this, let's tell it like it is.'

I wanted to study to be a dental hygienist, marry a rich dentist, and hang it up.

I was married for 10 minutes into a Southern family.

I went to UCLA, my dad's alma mater, and that was his dream.

Life is much too serious to be taken seriously.

Tim Conway was a little different from the rest. He was always in the back of the studio building something with the prop man, rewriting his lines, or plotting our demise.

It's the first villain that I've played in a movie that has absolutely no vulnerability and no innocence, nothing whatsoever that is likeable about her other than she's so bad.

If you are not going all the way, why go at all?

My children have gone to Catholic school... Part of their whole education is talking about the inner life and looking at your life, even though you're only 15 or 16 - thinking about your mortality, thinking about the value of your life, thinking about your obligations.

A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.

Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.

If every day in the life of a school could be the last day but one, there would be little fault to find with it.

I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.

I really wanted to break the mold of what modern touring is right now.

The march on washington was a culmination of years of hard work and dedication of many individuals.

Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap.

There are so many things to be worried about, and I wanted to make a record that people could put on, and it would lift them up the way the sun did for me each day.

One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.

Executives need ample flexibility to respond to the market. That means both reducing costs and increasing innovation.

New York gives us a wide colour palette to cook from. We have cuisines from around the world, and that lets us pick and choose.

It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.

Aviation is a dynamic profession. The rate of obsolescence of equipment is high and new aircraft have to be placed in inventory periodically in order to stay abreast of the requirements of modern war.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Voices are a good way to get in and out of things. James Carville constantly calls my wife to say I'll be home late. Mandy Patinkin and Al Pacino call to get me restaurant reservations.

I went to college in Vermont, and then stayed in the East Coast.

I type my sermon notes into my BlackBerry, then I upload my sermon notes to my blog, my Facebook page and some of the information to my Twitter account. That's 100,000 people I'm sharing the Gospel with by the virtue of typing it into my BlackBerry as opposed to writing it down. That is being efficient with my time.

To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.

Given my age, I am pretty near the end, probably, of my career as a writer, a scholar, a teacher. And I wanted to speak of things I will not be able to do.

Choose a business partner the way you choose a tennis partner. Select someone whos strong where you are weak.

The policy of the Obama administration is to employ regulatory strangulation to drive up the price of energy. This must be exposed and opposed for what it is: a policy of forced economic contraction.