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 CRYSTALThere’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
More Billy Crystal Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There’s only, I think, in life, three things that I do pretty well: Performing, I still can field ground balls, and I make nice kids.
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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 used to limp around my neighborhood imitating him. I did my Bar Mitzvah with an Oklahoma drawl.
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That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.
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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.
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Nobody is more truthful when he’s acting than De Niro.
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I’m a sucker for a free tuxedo.
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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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You really have to have some muscle to be on the stage in front of the world.
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Don’t give up your power.
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[I did impressions] of relatives because I heard so many different sounds. My dad was in the music business and of course my uncle was a giant [music producer], but my dad in particular had the house filled with these Dixieland jazz stars.
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As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
BILLY CRYSTAL







