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It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer’s life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.

Dick Cavett

I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinence, surely the worst idea since chocolate-covered ants.
DICK CAVETT

Chocolate Hands Ideas Myself Practice Shock Worst
I get a kick out of people saying I was funny.
DICK CAVETT

Funny Myself People
I have yet to see one of those Comedy Central shows with multiple standup comics that doesn’t include someone the size of the Hindenburg.
DICK CAVETT

Comic Myself See Show Stand
An effective speaker can do more damage or more good in a well-stated minute than an angry klutz could do in half an hour.
DICK CAVETT

Damage Goodness Talk Time
I’m sure I’ve all but lost friends by maintaining that, despite their love for it, I always saw Stanley Kramer’s ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ as more of an exercise in anti-comedy than humor.
DICK CAVETT

Exercise Friendship Lost Maintenance Myself
Commercials are not the only exposure that obesity gets on TV. It is by no means a rarity on the wonderful Judge Judy’s show when both plaintiff and accused all but literally fill the screen.
DICK CAVETT

Commercial Exposure Judge Rare Screen
It’s not always easy to identify your own voice. It comes with time.
DICK CAVETT

Easy Identify Time Voice Yourself
I find most ‘sacred music’ pretty dismal.
DICK CAVETT

Finding Music Myself Sacred
Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me.
DICK CAVETT

Beyond Criticism Death Declare Escape Reproach
The sudden death at 51 of James Gandolfini is intolerable.
DICK CAVETT

Death Myself Tolerance
I have never been converted to or even had much interest in spiritualism, occultism, Swedenborgianism or any particular religion. And I never, except occasionally for a laugh, visit the quacks who call themselves psychics.
DICK CAVETT

Call Exception Interest Laughter Myself Religion
Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.
DICK CAVETT

Oneself Performance Scene Show Tragedy
It’s lamented that the youth get their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It’s lamentable that they get more from them than from the news.
DICK CAVETT

Information News Youth
My IQ is somewhere between Spiro Agnew’s and Albert Einstein’s.
DICK CAVETT

Brain Intelligence Myself
I confess, I do have to remind myself almost daily that there are people on this earth capable of reading, writing, eating and dressing themselves who believe their lives are ruled from billions of miles away, by the stars – and, of course, the planets.
DICK CAVETT

Believe Confession Live Planet Reading Reminder Space
Greatly talented performers don’t know – often spectacularly – what’s best for them, don’t know what their talents really are, and don’t know what’s just plain wrong for them.
DICK CAVETT

Best Dumb Great Talent Unknown Wrong
Why are sex and violence always linked? I’m afraid they’ll blur together in people’s minds – sexandviolence – until we can’t tell them apart. I expect to hear a newscaster say, “The mob became unruly and the police were forced to resort to sex.”
DICK CAVETT

Afraid Mindset Myself People Police Sex Violence
The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never feel good again. I really thought that I was never gonna heal.
DICK CAVETT

Authority Depression Feeling Horrible
Anything seen on TV is, in a subtle and sinister sense, thereby endorsed.
DICK CAVETT

Promotion See Subtle
The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I’m not aware of any scholarly, scientific or neurological studies on the subject.
DICK CAVETT

Brain Joke Mystery Process Result Study Subject
I always wanted to live in a haunted house.
DICK CAVETT

Haunt Home Live Myself
I’m not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.
DICK CAVETT

Block Easy Hard Myself Reason Writing
Chris Matthews can’t start any sentence without ‘Let me ask you this… ‘ And I love Chris Matthews! But almost everybody in journalism does it. Who’s stopping you? Just say it!
DICK CAVETT

Journalism Myself Sentence Start
It was well after college that I learned about depression. I got my first job for Jack Paar. I realized I was sleeping 14 hours a day and just living for the Paar show.
DICK CAVETT

College Learning Myself Realization
By the time I was in the fourth grade, I sounded exactly like my father on the phone.
DICK CAVETT

Father Myself Phone Sound Time
If I were running a campaign, I’d urge taking the mountain of money reportedly squandered on pizza, coffee and bagels and spending it more wisely – on a talented young comedy writer.
DICK CAVETT

Campaign Comedy Myself Pizza Run Talent Wisdom Young
It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.
DICK CAVETT

Himself Person Rare

It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer’s life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.

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It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer’s life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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