Dad had a music store, and he’d often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy.
BILLY CRYSTALI always came away thinking “I’d like to see her more,” you know? And then when [Parental Guidance] was ready to be cast, we thought – Bette [Midler]. So we called her.
More Billy Crystal Quotes
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When comedy is good, it’s jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It’s all melody to me.
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A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it’s really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it’s great.
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In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.
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I’d like to think there is a Heaven, and it starts from the happiest day in your life.
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I’m a baby. I sleep like a baby – I’m up every two hours. And I think a lot. I worry a lot. I have great nights of no sleep where ideas come.
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When you realize you want to invest the rest of your lifestyle with somebody, you want the rest of your life to commence as quickly as achievable.
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Don’t give up your power.
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We were in front of a live audience and I would be acting with the man who was playing my lover, and we used those words, and the audience would titter and laugh, and make me uncomfortable doing the scenes. …
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At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are.
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I don’t like heights. This is why I stopped growing at fifth grade.
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When we had the girls, my daughter Jenny gave us like a Bible from my daughter of, “Don’t feed them this; don’t feed them that, if she says this, don’t say that,” It was crazy!
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Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I’d always go off book and start improvising.
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I’m married – I’ve caught my limit.
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Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar.
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I was introducing [director and producer] Hal Roach – Mr. Roach was 100 years old, he was one of the fathers of early days in films, he put Laurel with Hardy, he created the Our Gang kids, and all these silent movies he did – he was a giant.
BILLY CRYSTAL