I learned more at The Second City than I did at Yale for all that high tuition.

But I think the other is a little more like bullfighting, a little more daring and although I appreciate good acting and I liked being versatile my whole career, it kept me working.

I was in the De Witt Clinton Hight School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood - except Americans.

In the book of things people more often do wrong than right, investing must certainly top the list, followed closely by wallpapering and eating artichokes

Comedy is still alive, and there are still funny people. Jews are still overrepresented in comedy and psychiatry and underrepresented in the priesthood. That immigrant Jewish humor is still with us.

Fear is the greatest salesman.

And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.

My son has been a class clown and it sort of ran in the family.

I have a work-out regime; I am not a maniac. It sounds cliche, but stand-up comedy, doing a one-man show, helps keep me young, and yes, it is exhausting, but I don't collapse.

The '50s were terrifying with nuclear bomb stuff but boring in a social way and then the '60s were happening, and remember, there was no AIDS.

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

When we allow negative messages to fester in our head, they take on a life of their own.

The leader must have both – the courage to take the people to a daring destination and the humility to selflessly serve others on the journey.

When you're a kid, you tend to see the best in your mates. Because at least they're not as bad as your parents.

…Late at night, when the hour is none, I dream the dreams of the damned.

If you don't have the power to change yourself, then nothing will change around you.

Keep an eye on the weather, which is changing faster than predicted, and on the new diseases escaping or being made, even as we speak. It's a race between new tech and biosphere bankruptcy, I'd say.

I've imagined great victories, and I've imagined great races. The races are better.

always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives