Great Throughts Treasury

"I thought to myself, 'why not write a bestseller?' In the first place, more people buy them and more people read them. You make more money and it doesn’t take any more time to write a bestseller than it does to write a book nobody buys."

"I spent a year in that town, one Sunday."

"I stay away from natural foods. At my age I need all the preservatives I can get."

"I use the cigar for timing purposes. If I tell a joke, I smoke as long as they laugh and when they stop laughing I take the cigar out of my mouth and start my next joke."

"I'd announce that I was going to sing, and all our guests would make a ring around the piano. But somehow I managed to fight my way through the ring and sing anyway."

"I was married by a judge - I should have asked for a jury."

"I'd announced that I was going to sing and all our guests would make a ring around the piano. But somehow I'd manage to fight my way through that ring and sing anyway."

"I would go out with women my age, but there are no women my age."

"I was always taught to respect my elders and I've now reached the age when I don't have anybody to respect."

"I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate."

"I'd rather be over the hill than under it."

"I'd go out with women my age, but there are no women my age."

"If I paid $3 or $4 for a cigar, first I'd sleep with it."

"If I get big laughs, I'm a comedian. If I get little laughs, I'm a humorist. If I get no laughs, I'm a singer."

"If it's a good script I'll do it. And if it's a bad script, and they pay me enough, I'll do it."

"If I'd taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral."

"If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it."

"If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."

"If you stay in the business long enough and get to be old enough, you get to be new again."

"I'm at the age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill."

"I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere."

"I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the last one left."

"If you were married to Marilyn Monroe, you'd cheat with some ugly girl."

"I'm onstage for an hour. I do an hour of stand-up. Actually, I do 10 minutes standing up and 50 minutes sitting in a chair. Oh, occasionally, I stand up again to do a dance or put over a song. But mostly I sit down. A great invention, sitting down."

"It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married."

"It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth."

"In what other business can a guy my age drink martinis, smoke cigars and sing? I think all people who retire ought to go into show business. I've been retired all my life."

"In show business the key word is honesty. Once you've learned to fake that, the rest is easy."

"In those days the best painkiller was ice; it wasn't addictive and it was particularly effective if you poured some whiskey over it."

"It's good to be here. At 98, it's good to be anywhere."

"It's one of the old show business axioms. No matter how successful you've been, there's always a younger and sexier seal coming along."

"It's hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."

"I've been a straight man for so many years that from force of habit I repeat everything. I went out fishing with a fellow the other day and he fell overboard. He yelled, "Help! Help! Help!" so I said, "Help? Help? Help?" And while I was waiting for him to get his laugh, he drowned."

"Life's but a day at most."

"Money is the root of all evil.' Then we hear, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.' What are they talking about? If money is so evil, shouldn't it be, 'A wise man and his money are soon parted'? And another thing, how does a fool get money in the first place? I know some fools who have a lot of money, but they won't tell me how they got it, and I won't tell them."

"Look to the future, because that is where you'll spend the rest of your life."

"Love is a lot like a backache, it doesn't show up on X-rays, but you know it's there."

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

"Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read."

"Nudity has taken over all of show business. I went into a nightclub last week and a beautiful young girl came out onto the stage with nothing on and sang "On a clear day you can see forever.""

"Nice to be here? At my age it's nice to be anywhere."

"My major contribution to the format was to suggest that I be able to step out of the plot and speak directly to the audience, and then be able to go right back into the action. That was an original idea of mine; I know it was because I originally stole it from Thornton Wilder's play Our Town."

"People are always asking me when I'm going to retire. Why should I? I've got it two ways. I'm still making movies, and I'm a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half price."

"Our record doesn't show it, but we are getting better."

"People ask me what I'd most appreciate getting for my 87 birthday. I tell them a paternity suit."

"Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples."

"Retire? I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the only one left."

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope."

"Say Goodnight Gracie."

"Sex after ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope. I'm at the age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill."