A biography for Al Lewishasn’t been written yet.
“I probably worked every single entertainment medium, including some that don't exist. I worked the circus, carnival, I had my own medicine show, I worked 18 years of radio.”
“I think people need housing. And there's empty buildings, I think people should live in there. If you want to call them squatters, trespassers, hey, I call Wall Street thieves!”
“Oscar Wilde said the rich and the poor are equal - they can both sleep under the bridge. Right? Do they have a right? You're damn right they have a right!”
“America gets the politicians they deserve. That's it. And you keep struggling.”
“I'm for everyone having the opportunity to accept a $150,000 bribe.”
“The ruling class is smarter than you, and they're more creative. And if you forget that lesson, you go down the drain. Because if they weren't, they wouldn't be around as long as they have been and as strong as they have been.”
“As long as you gave it your best shot, even if in the opinion of others 'you failed,' you didn't fail.”
“What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center.”
“Understood what the struggle was about. My mother. Couldn't read or write, but she had more sense than many a graduate from Harvard.”
“I know who I am. I don't have to brag. I know what I contributed. I know what I did. You think you can do it better? Hey, go right ahead. The stage is yours.”
“I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.”
“I've been in the struggle over seventy years - it doesn't bother me I may not win.”
“I'm more important to me than any body you can mention. Do you know that?”
“I went to all the Love-Ins. I took my kids. I enjoyed myself.”
“I prefer that for my own satisfaction over radio, there's no audience. TV, there's no audience. I need the response of the audience, even if it's a silent response.”
“I have an old brain but a terrific memory.”
“Every Friday I used to have about fifty, sixty kids who would wait for me on Sunset Boulevard and I'd take them all to dinner. All runaways.”
“There's more to anybody. Just because you haven't noticed it, that's your problem, that's not mine.”
“My secret for success? I don't know what the hell success means.”
“But find something that you absolutely love doing. And then get to love the way you do it. That's the uniqueness of all of us. That's it.”