Alan King

“I made it, Ma - Carnegie Hall. And I didn't have to practice.”

“Performing is just standing up there and doing something. Performance takes on an edge to it. It has a more dramatic context.”

“I can't stay friends with anyone who doesn't have a passion for something; and, generally speaking, artistic people, creative people carry it right into the kitchen, too. They have a zest for life; the excitement of living. All of the great eaters I've known are also men of great wit.”

“You only live once, except for Shirley MacLaine.”

“Did you hear the one about the elderly Jew on his deathbed who sent for a priest, after declaring to his astonished relatives that 'I want to convert.' Asked why he would become a Catholic, after living all his life as a Jew, he answered: 'Better one of them should die than one of us.'”

“One thing I've never said in my whole life is, 'Let's have dinner at a Japanese restaurant.'”

“Banks have a new image. Now you have 'a friend,' your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?”

“As a parent, I'd - I'd be a better father.”

“And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.”

“When I was a kid, I used to send away for those ventriloquist kits on the back of comic books.”

“Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.”

“If you keep yourself alive and current, funny is funny.”

“My father helped me leave. He said, 'It's all out there, it's not here.'”

“I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.”

“That's the great thing about New Year's, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn't such a joke, because my birthday was always around this time. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That's what the trees are all about.”

“Modesty is not one of my virtues.”

“A summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!”

“Let's face it: It's difficult enough to be funny without worrying about what is going to offend whom.”

“When I read Dickens for the first time, I thought he was Jewish, because he wrote about oppression and bigotry, all the things that my father talked about.”

“Museums are good things, places to look and absorb and learn.”