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

[On Denmark:] … that little country of cottage cheese and courage.

I tried to charm the pants off Bob Dylan, but everyone will be disappointed to learn that I was unsuccessful. I got close – a couple of fast feels in the front seat of a Cadillac.

Men’s brains are smaller than those of women so they can fit into their penises.

The [film] business is run by men, and they’re basically interested in their own species, and they’re not so interested in women belonging to the human race.

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

If somebody makes me laugh, I’m his slave for life.

I believe that Judy Garland’s artistry was so fine. I mean, when people say: ‘oh, she brought so much of her life to her music’, I don’t really believe that. I believe that she didn’t have to. She just was a moving human being. That was her gift.

I try not to drink too much because when I’m drunk, I bite.

I love nature, in spite of what it did to me.

If you pick up a ukulele, it will make you unbelievably happy.

Most people are walking around the city like corpses; they aren’t alive enough to notice the trash. They come from other places and they see it as a big garbage dump.

Find your Light; They can’t love you if they can’t see you

I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can’t physically entertain any longer. It’s what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

One of my first role models was Eugene Lang, a wealthy businessman who went back to his elementary school in East Harlem and addressed the sixth-grade class. He looked out at that sea of faces and said, “If any of you wants to go to college, I will pay for it.”

The inventor of the modern foundation garment that we women wear today was a German scientist and opera lover by the name of Otto Titsling.

There’s the media-driven universe, in which the public perceives you in a superficial way. Then there’s the universe that you actually inhabit, where you have to get up even if you didn’t sleep so well, and you feel like crap and your face is swollen.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

If for the sake of a crowded audience you do wish to hold a lecture, your ambition is no laudable one, and at least avoid all citations from the poets, for to quote them argues feeble industry.

I have a genuine love affair with my audience. When I’m on stage they’re not privileged to see me. It’s a privilege for me to see them.

I love being on stage, I love being able to tell a story, I love the fact that the audience listens and laughs at it. It makes me happy, and it’s what I live for.

The roar of the crowd has always been the sweetest music. It’s intoxicating.

When you can take things that are painful and make them funny, that’s a gift – to you and your audience.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

The audience has always been my best director.