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 CRYSTALI 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.
More Billy Crystal Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Nobody is more truthful when he’s acting than De Niro.
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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.
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You give up your dream, you give up.
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My grandparents invented joylessness. They were not fun. I’ve already had more fun with my grandchildren than my grandparents ever had with me.
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Bambi, to a kid, was scary.
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I’d like to think there is a Heaven, and it starts from the happiest day in your life.
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By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he’s too old to go anywhere.
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I’m married – I’ve caught my limit.
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A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it’s really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it’s great.
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If you do something for the first time, you will always remember it. If your Dad has something to do with it, you write about it.
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That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.
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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. …
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