Bob Newhart

“I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'”

“When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'”

“I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.”

“I think there's a little confusion between humor and 'gross' passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable, because they aren't the same thing.”

“It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.”

“I didn't know I was cool, but I was very flattered that some of the younger comedy writers came up to talk to me at the Emmys. I found that gratifying.”

“I was never a Certified Public Accountant... I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a Certified Public Accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.”

“If you look at Jack Benny, George Burns, or Don Rickles, they've all had long, successful marriages. So, I think there's something about laughter and the durability of a marriage.”

“'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever.”

“The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit.”

“Mark Twain gave us an insight into the life on the Mississippi at the turn of the century.”

“When I was off TV, people would ask me to please come back, which I think was their way of saying, 'There's nothing out there for us.'”

“You're not dead at 85. You're a long way from it. Go out and enjoy. You've earned it.”

“I'm not what you'd call a Method actor.”

“For some reason, comedians are still children. The social skills somehow never reach us, so we say exactly what we think without weighing the results.”

“If 'The New York Times' says it, it must be true.”

“The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.”