Dick Van Dyke

“My wife, as proud as she was of me, hated show business for good reasons. There was something about the spouse always being pushed out of the way, shoved aside. She wanted to get away from it.”

“For some reason, as time gets short in life, wasting time escaping through entertainment bothers me.”

“I watch 'Al Jazeera.' They have news that you can't find anywhere else. They do great documentaries, too.”

“I've made peace with insecurity... because there is no security of any kind.”

“I can't work with my brother without laughing.”

“I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.”

“My wife didn't like Hollywood or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner - cooked by Frank Sinatra.”

“I don't think parents can protect their kids in this media-nut culture.”

“I think, the 'Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Poppins' are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn't want it to end.”

“I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don't know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.”

“Unfortunately, the spouses of performers have a terrible, terrible life. They get shunted aside, pushed aside, ignored.”

“I never even had a bachelorhood: I went straight from my parents' home to a marriage.”

“Working with my son was like falling off a log. I had so much fun doing it.”

“Here's the truth. Your teens and twenties are your Plan A. At 50, you're assessing whether Plan B or Plan C or any of the other plans you hatched actually worked. Your sixties and seventies, they're an improvisation.”

“When I auditioned for 'Bye Bye Birdie' on Broadway, Gower Champion said, 'You've got the job!' I said, 'Mr. Champion, I can't dance.' He said, 'We'll teach you what you need to know.'”

“I have four children and I have seven grandkids.”

“Just knowing you don't have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn - and those are all good things.”

“When I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me.”

“I sing and dance. That's my job.”

“As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility.”