“I feel as if I’m in on a pass and am damn lucky to have whatever I have. It could all be taken away in a second.”

I’ve never liked the idea of just having an office in a college somewhere and teaching classes and going to the library and doing research all day. I’ve never wanted that. The glamorous life is the life that appeals to me.

The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.

I am back in LA now. And I keep thinking back to my time in New York after the bombings…. I was crying so much I could not see, and the other diners joined in, and I thought, What do you do with such atheistic evil?

Hollywood is largely about scammers and con men. It was my main livelihood for about 25 years, and the scams were beautiful and ugly, cheap and expensive, but, wow, were there a lot of scammers.

The ordinary American – as far as I can tell – knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.

The first step in getting what you want from life-decide what you want.

I have to tell you I never in my life anticipated getting this old, this fast. It seems as if I were 25 just a few days ago.

Prime-time network television has become an island without religion in an ever-more-religious America.

Emperor Sid Caesar is gone to eternity himself now. He takes with him the gratitude of every one of us who first learned the relief of laughter from this genuinely great performer.

We are mortgaging ourselves to foreigners on a scale that would make George Washington cry. Every day – every single day – we borrow a billion dollars from foreigners to buy petroleum from abroad, often from countries that hate us.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

Nothing happens by itself… it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for ‘Barron’s’ magazine and I found a lot to write about.

Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.

It isn’t the rich people’s fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place. Science leads you to killing people.

I’m just a kid from Bronx who got lucky.

If you don’t get killed, it’s a lucky day for anybody.

We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot.

We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot.

I’ve been really lucky with the people that I’ve gotten to work with. I learn a lot from them, just by watching them.

I was trained at a conservatory school, and they usher you into the business by giving you a showcase. I was so lucky that I met with an agent

I was lucky enough, when I was younger, to have the chance to do as much as possible, and I found what I wanted to do. I did swimming, gymnastics, kickboxing and the one that took off more than the others was acting.

I think there’s a lot of good and bad to L.A. One of the things you have to consider is that you can, if you’re lucky, make a decent living here. That’s a big plus. That’s pretty positive. The weather is OK.