“The audience is the barometer of the truth.”

Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: ‘I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.’

Life’s too short. Start with Dessert!

I don’t like the word ‘superstar’. It has ridiculous implications. These words – star, stupor, superstar, stupid star – they’re misleading. It’s a myth.

There is nothing more important in life than love.

I worked in a Chinese restaurant.

A human being is only interesting if he’s in contact with himself.

I got sent to a health camp when I was about 6 years old, and we all had to wear the same starchy blue uniform. The lady who took care of me after school knit me a burgundy sweater. It was the only thing that gave me any individuality.

I’m a work in progress.

Sometimes, when you work with mediocre talents, they feel entitled. They act like stars. Genuinely talented people don’t.

New York critics – I hear when one of them watched “A Star Is Born”, he talked back to the screen.

My biggest nightmare is I’m driving home and get sick and go to hospital. I say: ‘Please help me.’ And the people say: ‘Hey, you look like…’ And I’m dying while they’re wondering whether I’m Barbra Streisand.

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man’s habits and then complain that he’s not the man she married?

Everybody’s frightened a bit. But how many of us just go through the fear and do it anyway?

I knew that with a mouth like mine, I just hadda be a star or something.

I know doing movies is where I need to be. That’s where my audience wants to see me.

I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It’s the crisis of my life.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can’t always hear what people in the audience are saying.

After the band loaded in and the curtain opened, we realized there was exactly one paying customer in the audience.

When you’re doing stand-up, you achieve an intimacy with the audience you can’t get on TV. There’s not a better feeling in the entire world then when you look out and see the audience is identifying with you.

I’ve always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.

Maybe the actors that used to turn down William Goldman’s scripts – where he wanted them to stretch and grow, and he was mad at ’em, and said, “Why won’t they be a real actor?” – maybe they just knew their audience. It’s too bad.

Drawing is the most inalienable medium. It is private; it practically doesn’t have an audience in mind, just the artist’s expression.