There is an edginess in my work that people don't always recognize.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.

I don't think of myself as an American Master. I've just been making a living.

I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.

Chuck Lorre and I had been talking about doing one of his shows for a while. I said I'd like to do 'The Big Bang Theory,' because I think it's the best written, most intelligent show on television.

You're not dead at 85. You're a long way from it. Go out and enjoy. You've earned it.

No matter what hyenas sound like, they are not actually laughing.

The schizophrenic has no sense of humor. His world is a constantly daunting, unfriendly place.

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.

I certainly don't delude myself that there aren't certainly more important things to do in life than make people laugh, but I can't imagine anything that would bring me more joy.

Don't live in the past. There's no point. You can't change anything. What a waste of time.

I was very political when JFK ran.

I've had time off, and it drove me nuts. I was crawling up the wall.

I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened.

For a comedian, there is nothing better than watching another great comedian.

When I started, I was doing all the good comedians I'd ever seen. Then I developed my own voice. My routines are my natural way of looking at the world.

With the stand-up comic on TV, whether it's Seinfeld or Cosby or Roseanne, more important than their knowledge of how to tell a joke is their knowledge of themselves, or the persona they've created as themselves. So that when you're in a room with writers, you can say, 'Guys, that's a funny line, but I wouldn't say it.'

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.

I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though you're poking fun at someone or something, there's still an affection for it.

When I was off TV, people would ask me to please come back, which I think was their way of saying, 'There's nothing out there for us.'

I just don't think most people put myself and Robert Frost in the same category.

The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you're just breaking in and that's working, and that's - you're one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience there.

Mark Twain gave us an insight into the life on the Mississippi at the turn of the century.

If 'The New York Times' says it, it must be true.

I would say I came from upper middle class family.

I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda - and I'm just talking about the male actors - there aren't a lot who can act. It's a very special talent, and I wish it were recognized as a very special talent.

People are meant to be certain places, and I think I'm meant to be on a sound stage doing situation comedy.

'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever.

I left 'The Bob Newhart Show,' which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.

I found the most difficult thing when you became successful - when I had the record album, it won Album of the Year - that you were cut off from the source of your material. Your material was everyday people, and you were kind of cut off from that, and you had to work at it.

Dick Martin, if you put a gun to his forehead, he couldn't tell you a joke.

I can't do a one-camera show. I don't know how to do that kind of show where you count in your head and then you do the next line.

I was an accountant in Chicago, and a friend of mine, Ed Gallagher, was in advertising. At 4:30 every day I'd be bored, and I would call him. He'd interview me.

I loved 'Everybody Loves Raymond' because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.

I remember seeing a movie with Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney where they were husband and wife, and they got in bed, and he had on polka-dot pajamas and she had on striped pajamas, and when they got up the next morning he had on the striped pajamas and she had the polka dot pajamas, and that was considered racy at that time!

When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'

I have an aversion to laugh tracks - the moment I hear a laugh track, I go to another channel.

I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.

Humor is so important to the American scene throughout history.

Probably the best advice I ever got in my life was from the head of the accounting department, Mr. Hutchinson, I believe at the Glidden Company in Chicago, and he told me, 'You really aren't cut out for accounting.'

The best advice I was probably given and the best advice I could give someone who is trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.

With the advent of cell phones, especially with the very small microphone that attach to the cell phone itself, it's getting harder and harder I find, to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone.

If you look at Jack Benny, George Burns, or Don Rickles, they've all had long, successful marriages. So, I think there's something about laughter and the durability of a marriage.

For some reason, comedians are still children. The social skills somehow never reach us, so we say exactly what we think without weighing the results.

Comedians are innately programmed to pick up oddities like mispronounced words, upside-down books on a shelf, and generally undetectable mistakes in everyday life.

Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright.

The greatest comedian I've ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn't afraid of the silences.

I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.

The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.

I don't watch that much television.