When you're a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over, and you literally don't have a thought in your mind. It's purely meditation, and we lose that.

Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.

Just knowing you don't have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn - and those are all good things.

In my seventies, I exercised to stay ambulatory. In my eighties, I exercise to avoid assisted living.

I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.

I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don't know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.

The Horny Toad in Cave Creek has great food. When I'm in Arizona, I have at least one meal there. I have a daughter who lives out there, and Dee Dee Wood, who was the choreographer on 'Mary Poppins,' lives out there. I still get out there once in a while, but not in the summer.

I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.

Television's going, as far as I'm concerned, downhill, and I'm an anachronism.

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!

I have four kids, seven grandkids, and four great-grandkids. Maybe I can become a great-great-grandfather if I hang on!

When I auditioned for 'Bye Bye Birdie' on Broadway, Gower Champion said, 'You've got the job!' I said, 'Mr. Champion, I can't dance.' He said, 'We'll teach you what you need to know.'

Today, if you're not an alcoholic, you're nobody.

The secret to keeping moving is keeping moving.

I was 5 years old when the stock market crashed; I lost everything.

So I think we're kind of an alternate choice for people who have had it with sex and violence.

I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called 'My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.' A publisher came to me and said, 'Write a book,' so I did. I wanted to call it 'Everybody Else Has Got a Book.'

I'm not a loner. I have to have a life partner.

I'm really in retirement. My career is over. I'm just playing now and having a great time. I like to keep busy, and I'm doing what's fun for me.

Don't worry so much. Most of the things you worry about never end up happening.

'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was a movie that I repeatedly turned down. The movie's producer, Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me after the success we'd enjoyed with 'Mary Poppins.'

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility.

Do you know that I was the anchor on the 'CBS Morning Show?' And my newsman was Walter Cronkite.

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him.

I'm always announcing my retirement. I'm still not retired.

I turned down some movies that were quite good. mainly on the basis of taste.

I worked nightclubs all through my 20s, and I was a teetotaler.

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people.

I married somebody half my age, and everybody thought I was crazy, but she is just an absolute angel.

I've had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the 'Van Dyke Show.' They said it looked like fun.

Pandering to the scandal hungry public is a total lack of responsible journalism.

There's a lot of very funny people I'd love to work with that I've never met, of course. I love Steve Martin and Jim Carrey.

I think it's being thrown at the wolves, we call it in our business.

I can't work with my brother without laughing.

Put me on solid ground and I'll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving.

But I wish they would make a musical of some kind. I miss musicals so much. You don't see them anymore.

I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit.

Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.'

As for my studies in school, I was a solid student. I was strong in English and Latin, but I got lost anytime the subject included math. I wish I had paid more attention to biology and science in general, subjects that came to interest me as an adult. I could have gotten better marks, but I never took a book home, never did homework.

I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl.

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know.

My father made about $25 a week. We always lived just on the edge.

For some reason, as time gets short in life, wasting time escaping through entertainment bothers me.

I don't play golf. I have more fun singing and dancing.

A lot of violence, a lot of gore in it, and I just didn't want to do that kind of thing.

I cannot tell you what it means when children recognize. This is about the third generation for me. And when kids that small recognize me, it really pleases me, very gratifying.

I don't think we've got much of a chance to tell you the truth. But our main problem is our audience skews a little older than most shows, and I don't think our people can stay up that late. I certainly can't.

I grew up in Danville, Illinois, right in the middle of the state.

I have four children and I have seven grandkids.