“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. …”

That’s why that show, no matter who hosts it, it really should be a fast-thinking comedian who is really quick on their feet that can handle situations that happen, or somebody with that kind of mentality that can capitalize on something.

You give up your dream, you give up.

It’s money. I remember it from when I was single

I’m a sucker for a free tuxedo.

I started examining history and then everything related to the theater. History, art, all the other studies, if I could link them into the theater, then it became alive for me. It just opened up my eyes.

Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar.

[I did impressions] of relatives because I heard so many different sounds. My dad was in the music business and of course my uncle was a giant [music producer], but my dad in particular had the house filled with these Dixieland jazz stars.

At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are.

My grandparents invented joylessness. They were not fun. I’ve already had more fun with my grandchildren than my grandparents ever had with me.

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I’d always go off book and start improvising.

I 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.

Don’t give up your power.

Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.

I’m going to go on just living and laughing and loving.

The Passion of the Christ opened up on Ash Wednesday, had a Good Friday.

When I’ve gotten criticism, it’s that it’s too long, too soft, didn’t hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, What’s he doing hitting the government?

I like trying to do things which work on many levels, because I think it is terribly important to give an audience a lot of things they might not get as well as those they will.

My son says I never tell stories about anyone who’s living.

I expect them to have read books – there are a lot of people like that! That’s my audience.

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

When I talk to audiences about the size and age of the cosmos, people often say, “It makes me feel so insignificant.” I answer, “The bigger and more impersonal the universe is, the more meaningful you are, because this vast.

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare.

I don’t think it does the audience any good to know what I do to prepare.

Only two to three per cent of an audience is interested in words and pays attention to lyrics.