“There’s no idea or concept in comedy you could do that hasn’t been attacked from some angle. But if you start leaving punchlines out so you’ll look cool, I don’t get that. But I don’t watch standup anyway, so I don’t know what they’re doing.”

I would have rather been beat by a plumber than Kathy Griffin.

I begged the universe to make me a famous comedian, and it did. So I tend not to ask for any more.

I still love to walk on stage and make people laugh, and I work very, very hard at it, and I take it seriously.

I believe that a bad Super Bowl halftime show is still better than a soccer game.

Anything I write that I consider stage-quality work, I won’t give my TV show. I put it in my live show.

The bulk of my fans are my age, and I’m aging at the same rate they are. That makes me relevant. They like hearing what I have to say. I work hard at it, but it’s addicting, really.

There are two kinds of comics; there are the ones who build bridges, and then there are the people who walk across the bridges as though they built them. The bridge builders are few and far between.

It went from Bob Newhart to Flip Wilson to Bill Cosby to Richard Pryor to George Carlin to Cheech and Chong. I had all these records.

It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don’t talk about the arts there much on career day.

There were years when I was a beer and tequila guy, then I got real fat. And then I found that you could actually go on a diet and drink scotch. Then I got hooked on scotch, and if you get hooked on scotch, then everything else just tastes wrong.

I always found that the closer I got to who I really am, on stage, the more they responded to it.

My uncle was a preacher, and I used to go watch him preach. He was also funny, so I’m very ‘preacher-ish’ on stage, not by intent but because that’s where I learned to talk in front of people.

I’m set up where I make a lot of money doing stand-up, and it’s easy.

I started selling out comedy clubs before I got to town with no advertising. I was selling out theaters just on the rumor that I was going to be there.

Here’s how I operate. When I see something I like, 20 years later, I ask her brother for her phone number. She don’t even see me coming.

I’m not willing to drag my fans down a road I don’t believe in. That’s just my one little principle. I’ve only got one, and that’s it.

What made me want to play guitar was that painting of Wings in concert in the gatefold of Wings Over America. It looked so exciting… I wanted to be part of it.

But I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

If youre a singer, you do concerts, and you get that interaction with fans and see what cities in what part of the world come out to see you.

People working at the arenas are not just depending on one or two concerts.

I did a whole concert in Atlanta with my fly open, and I had a black suit on and a white shirt. My white shirt was protruding from the fly.

I did a concert at five years old in the garden of one of the church members, and we raised some money to buy a new piano in our little church.

I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies, going to concerts, and I get so jealous.

Harmony is pure love, for love is a concerto.