“The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe.”

Every moment that you share someone else’s pain, feel what they feel, makes you more human.

You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba.

Just beat my record for most consecutive days without dying.

To people who want to be rich and famous, I’d say, “Get rich first and see if that doesn’t cover it.”

I think we’re all sort of imprisoned by – or at least bound to – the choices we make… You want to say no at the right time and you want to say yes more sparingly.

He’s going on and on and on, and finally he stops. It’s just total horror, and the camera’s still rolling. You can hear it, sort of a grinding noise. And the director says, “Anything else, Bud?”

Buddy Hackett [was] talking – this is Hackett, not me – about the Virgin Mary, a limerick sort of thing, and all these children and families … the look of absolute horror.

You can handle just about anything that comes at you out on the road with a believable grin, common sense and whiskey.

Now, for some of you it doesn’t matter. You were born rich and you’re going to stay rich. But here’s my advice to the rest of you.

I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over?

Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It’s not for the acting, that’s for sure.

There aren’t many downsides to being rich, other than paying taxes and having relatives asking for money. But being famous, that’s a 24 hour job right there.

I don’t know what my fans are going to think. It’s definitely not what they’re used to from me.

I think all phases of one’s career are serious if you take it seriously no matter if you are doing high profile dramatic pieces or not.

While I have felt lonely many times in my life, the oddest feeling of all was after my mother, Lucille, died. My father had already died, but I always had some attachment to our big family while she was alive. It seems strange to say now that I felt so lonely, yet I did.

I know how to be sour. I know that taste.

I started tapping and I was okay. Then after about two years my feet knew what they were doing!

If you realized how beautiful you are, you would fall at your own feet.

I think ‘Tap Dogs’ has lasted so long because people have a natural interest in tap dancing.

Let’s just say that back in the old days, sex was available every two feet. But I never made love to anybody that did not want me to.

When I’m in power, here’s how I’m gonna put the country back on its feet. I’m going to put sterilizing agents in the following products: Sunny Delight, Mountain Dew, and Thick-Crust Pizza. Only the ‘tardiest of the ‘tards like the thick crust.

an optimist is the man who looks after your eyes, and the pessimist the person who looks after your feet.

My new shorty got a gymnastic back, ’87 emerald green on a classic Jag. She had the cleft palate, I ordered chef’s salad; She had the club foot, with that little arm, I couldn’t help but laugh…she ordered Chicken Parm.

TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006, maintainer of a foot long beard