Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You could knock my teeth out and break my nose, and there'd be something funny about it to me.
I was always the guy getting kicked out of my classes at school for having an attitude problem.
Every Vacation movie didn't just make the studio money. They each made the studio a lot of money.
Last good pratfall I did, I broke bones in both hands. I still feel it when people shake my hand.
What's funny is funny. The same thing that made you laugh a hundred years ago makes you laugh now.
My father was the funniest guy I ever met. I'm not sure if I stole his stuff or if I inherited it.
Any good actor has to have a good sense of humour, too; they have to be able to manipulate people.
Some Harvard guy said that acid would open our minds, pot wouldn't hurt us, and cocaine was benign.
It's never a good idea for a celebrity to sign autographs or take pictures if a crowd is gathering.
A laugh is a surprise. And all humor is physical. I was always athletic, so that came naturally to me.
I did comedy and parody television in the '70s. I was a liberal Democrat, and it was a very heady year.
It's not like I am working with the great innovators of all time, but at the same time, they are my friends.
I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.
The raising of an eyebrow, how you do it; when you look, how you look. All those little things are physical.
They can't make any of these talented young actors Fletch. You might as well make a movie called Chevy Chase.
It seemed that my brother and I were always fighting in the back seat, and there was never any real reason for it.
With Clinton, there's no question that I would have made fun of his out-and-out lying. But he's also a good friend.
The idea of trying to write sketches the same way we did on Saturday Night Live every day would be damn near impossible.
What interests me is being alive and being with friends that I care about and being as creative as I can given circumstance.
It's incredible. Twenty-three minutes on the air, and I've got to shoot for twelve, fifteen hours a day. What the hell's that?
Ideally, I'd like to go right back to getting $7 million a picture and being the headliner. That's probably not going to happen.
To me, talk shows are those things during the middle of the afternoon where the underbelly of society is made to look like Middle America.
I have three daughters. I wanted them to be raised where there are real seasons and where everyone their age wasn't trying to get into movies.
I really love making movies. I just have this yearning in my stomach to go back and somehow subversively screw up television a little bit again.
You may have read that I went to M.I.T. In 1982 I filled out a Who's Who survey with joking responses, and they never bothered to check the facts.
It will eventually be discovered that the more you sleep, the healthier you are. Which means you'll really be at your healthiest when you pass away.
The fact was, Ford kept stumbling around. I didn't want him in the White House. I wanted Carter in, and I had a forum of 20 million people watching.
I tell the person I won't take a picture or sign the autograph, but I will shake their hand. That kind of personal touch is all they're really seeking.
I was very involved in political satire, and I'd been writing parody for 'Mad' and 'National Lampoon,' so I made up some strange story about Gerald Ford.
Once I got married and had kids, I moved away from romantic roles, because it seemed wrong to have my 3-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.
There was a whole slew of 'Cops and Robbersons,' just films that didn't measure up, that didn't stand for anything comedically. They were purely for a paycheck.
Once I got married and had kids, I moved away from romantic roles, because it seemed wrong to have my three-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.
Let's not call physical comedy falling down and pratfalls. All humor is physical, no matter how you dish it out. It's timing, like a dancer or an athlete would have.
I think the Clintons are brilliant. I've never met a person as intelligent as Bill, and I think Hillary is right up there with him. They're too smart for Washington.
If what you do in life is perform to open up eyes and minds, to make people laugh, then it better damn well be new! It shouldn't be just a repetitious 'Hey, I'm still here!'
Socialism works ... [and] Cuba might prove that. I think it's conclusive that there have been areas where socialism has helped to keep people at least stabilized at a certain level.
Anything I have blown a lot of money on? Well, I have three daughters and a wife - that's four women, and I'm working on a sitcom, so you could say that I am just trying to stay alive!
I prefer movies because the money is better and certainly because you really know where you stand when you are making movies, and I have made a lot of them: 50-something - I don't know.
I would love to do a movie with Albert Brooks; we're so different, but I find him so funny, and I can be just as seemingly narcissistic as he comes off, the 'it's all about me' kind of thing.
For one thing, you need a lot of self-confidence to be on the top of your field. There are times probably where I appear to be over-confident or arrogant. It's really in the eye of the beholder.
I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.
The first thing that happens is that you're overwhelmed by so much attention. It's just so unnatural. Only people who've been in that position can realize what it's like. I mean, you have to be there.
All those car battles with my brother Ned were excellent training. Even now, on the set, if we're getting into a vehicle, I'll yell 'shotgun' first. Thus forcing Steve Martin into the back of the car.
Yes, I've seen Louis CK. I wouldn't in any way make a degrading remark about Louis CK, but the question is do I think anyone is funny? And the answer is not too many people. He might fit right in there.
I was a young, new, hot star, and I had this unbelievable arrogance. As time went on, the strident narcissism and arrogance slowly diminished. But I was definitely there. I'm older now. And a big crybaby.
I turned down 'American Gigolo.' There are many films - like 'Ghostbusters' - that I turned down... The first one I did was 'Foul Play' with Goldie Hawn, but I turned down 'Animal House' - I turned that down.
Chaplin was my idol. I remember watching those movies at this little theater in Woodstock, N.Y., when I was probably 6 and laughing so hard at the surprises, like Keaton suddenly being dragged by a streetcar.
Parodies came about because Mr. Ford was actually one of the better athletes of our presidents... but he continually had physical accidents... he was an easy target for me. The main idea was to get people laughing.
Anybody can reach anywhere from five to 15 million people weekly making a president look like an idiot, as I did back then, or Tina Fey did with Sarah Palin... You're always preaching to the choir one way or the other.
When you stop to realize that Abraham Lincoln was probably never seen by more than 400 people in a single evening, and that I can enter over 40 million homes in a single evening due to the power of television, you have to admit the situation is not normal.