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You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they’re raising them. You can’t push your way into areas where you shouldn’t be saying anything.

Billy Crystal

I have 40-something intros [that Davis Jr. did]; all are different, none of them happened. And it was hilarious.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Different Happened Something
As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Actors Character Directors
At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Remember Same Things
You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they’re raising them. You can’t push your way into areas where you shouldn’t be saying anything.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Hands Kids Play
I love doing it [hosting the Oscars] because I love the danger of it and you have to come through and think on your feet.
BILLY CRYSTAL

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

Fun Grandchildren Grandparent
That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Comedy Jazz Soul
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.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Eyes History Open Related Started
Dad had a music store, and he’d often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Dad Home Style
I was introducing [director and producer] Hal Roach – Mr. Roach was 100 years old, he was one of the fathers of early days in films, he put Laurel with Hardy, he created the Our Gang kids, and all these silent movies he did – he was a giant.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Father Introducing Kids Producer Years
At some point I stopped stand-up because I didn’t have something to say on a nightly basis.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Bases Nightly Something
Don’t give up your power.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Don't Give Up Giving Up Power
I’m a sucker for a free tuxedo.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Country Free Life Sucker
Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Clothes Differences Looks
Kids need a happy household. They need to be loved and supported in their dreams. And I don’t think you can make your kids’ dreams your own. They need you to support them in their dreams.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Dream Kids Thinking
The Passion of the Christ opened up on Ash Wednesday, had a Good Friday.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Ashes Friday Passion
Good news, they found Nemo! The bad news is, they found him in one of Wolfgang Puck’s puff pastries.
BILLY CRYSTAL

News Puck Puff
I used to limp around my neighborhood imitating him. I did my Bar Mitzvah with an Oklahoma drawl.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Baseball Country
Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Celebrate Children Easter Guess Jesus Peep
When comedy is good, it’s jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It’s all melody to me.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Art Comedy Way
The inspiration was this great group of 40 or 50 relatives, sometimes for Thanksgiving or Passover or something and my brothers would just go up and make them laugh.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Brother Inspiration Laughing
It is better to look good than to feel good.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Comedian Feel Good Looks
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. …
BILLY CRYSTAL

Audience Front Growing Men Self Used
You really have to have some muscle to be on the stage in front of the world.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Muscles Stage World
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.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Guidance Now Then Thinking
I never stopped believing in us and I never felt like I was wanting for anything, except for my father, and that was not going to be. I describe in the book [that] I don’t think I ever felt young again in that way.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Believe Book Father
I think when I feel I’m at my best is when I’m on stage, and it’s my version of jazz because it’s just riffing or something.
BILLY CRYSTAL

Comedy Jazz Thinking

You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they’re raising them. You can’t push your way into areas where you shouldn’t be saying anything.

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Popular Authors

You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they’re raising them. You can’t push your way into areas where you shouldn’t be saying anything.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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