“When I started, the scripts weren’t as good, and you’d have to have a huge burst of energy to go, “Sheesh, how am I going to? This stuff’s no good.””

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 met a woman who photographed celebrity dogs for a book, and she told me that Ralph Lauren’s dog is named Rugby. I said, Yeah, but his real name is Stickball.

Every day, he was talking to the studio about this helicopter shot.

Disneyland. The world’s biggest people trap, built by a mouse.

Those are my people, you know? The ones who are going to crash and burn.

The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything.

Moral Education is the source of that spiritual equilibrium on which everything else depends and which may be compared to that physical equilibrium or sense of balance, without which it is impossible to stand upright or to move into any other position.

Take away winning, and you take away everything that is strong about America.

If Christ lives in us, we will rejoice in everything, and we will thank and praise the Lord. We will say, ‘Hallelujah! Praise the Lord’ forever.

I want nothing for myself; I want everything for the Lord.

He who is able to accept everything gladly from the Lord – including darkness, dryness, flatness – and completely disregard self is he who lives for Him.

The Lord has shown me that I can do anything, but that He has said, apart from Me ye can do nothing. So it comes to this, that everything I have done, and can still do apart from Him is nothing!

It’s when you get to 60 when everything starts to go pear-shaped. Everyone thinks that becoming an older guy is easy, but you never consider it fully. It comes as quite a shock.

Human nature is to blame for everything, innit? We’re just a disease on this planet.