A lot of vets like 'Good Morning Vietnam' - I get great letters from guys.
A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills - no, no. They'd make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while.
Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.
Being in the same room with people and creating something together is a good thing.
Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.
Carpe per diem - seize the check.
Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.
Comedy is acting out optimism.
Cricket is basically baseball on valium.
Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.
Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.
For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I'm outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it's hardest to see.
From the point of view of being in the public radar, comedians have less problems than other actors. Action movie stars like Stallone or Schwarzenegger usually attract the more aggressive fans.
Gentiles are people who eat mayonnaise for no reason.
Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!
I basically started performing for my mother, going, 'Love me!' What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection. When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.
I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was... a large Arctic region covered with ice.
I bought one of the first Nintendo systems and brought that home, and we were playing 'Legend of Zelda' at the time, and it was addicting, and I was playing it for hours and hours and hours.
I do believe in love; it's wonderful - especially love third time around, it's even more precious; it's kind of amazing.
I don't do well with snakes and I can't dance.
I don't have a college degree, and my father didn't have a college degree, so when my son, Zachary, graduated from college, I said, 'My boy's got learnin'!'
I enjoy performing for heavily armed people. It's easier than going to Georgia.
I have a difficult time doing an Irish accent; even now, it kind of fades slowly into Scottish.
I have an idea for a movie called 'The Walken Dead' which is about a town where, instead of zombies, everyone becomes Chris Walken.
I knew Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were really talented. As actors, they were both studly young men, and they had great writers' chops.
I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.
I like my wine like my women - ready to pass out.
I love kids, but they are a tough audience.
I loved running, but all of a sudden everything hurt so much. I started cycling when Zelda was born.
I loved school, maybe too much, really. I was summa cum laude in high school. I was driven that way.
I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn't know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he'd done.
I only ever play Vegas one night at a time. It's a hideous, gaudy place; it may not be the end of the world per se, but you can certainly see it from there.
I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.
I think 'Dead Poets' was probably my favorite, just to get started with the idea of doing a movie that people treated as more than a movie.
I think it's great when stories are dark and strange and weirdly personal.
I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.
I was only a leading man for a minute; now I'm a character actor.
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
If Heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing.
If it's the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?
If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.
I'm much more open to being a supporting actor right now. At the age of 60, I'll be second fiddle. Fine. I'm happy to do it.
I'm sorry, if you were right, I'd agree with you.
In America they really do mythologise people when they die.
In the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. And in doing that, you'll find out here's the other side. You'll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter.
In 'The Secret Agent,' it's basically a character that was admired by Theodore Kaczynski, which is some fan mail you don't really want to open. This is a man who is a chemist and who specializes in making bombs and despises humanity.
It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work.
I've had a lot of people tell me they watched 'Old Dogs' with their kids and had a good time.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
Look at the walls of Pompeii. That's what got the internet started.
My mother's idea of natural childbirth was giving birth without makeup. She was hyper-positive - the world is a wonderful place, rainbows and unicorns. If you said anything contrary to her, you were basically exiled.
My style is bad white-boy dancing. I can do swing a little bit, but nothing beyond that. My solo dancing is sad. I use my arms, badly.
Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose.
No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
Okra is the closest thing to nylon I've ever eaten. It's like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.
One of my favourite actors of all time, although he doesn't necessarily play villains, is Peter Lorre.
People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.
Performing comedy in San Francisco to begin with is pretty wild. You've got to - you've got the human game preserve to play off of. And it's a lot of great characters everywhere. You work off that, and then you play the rooms, and eventually you get to a point where you're playing a club that is a comedy club, with other comics.
Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.
Reality: What a concept!
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
Sometimes you have to make a movie to make money.
Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'
The 'Aladdin' thing - that's not work; that's just fun. Three days in the recording studio going mad, then the animators do all the work. Not a bad way to cash a large check, my friend.
The bad thing about being a famous comedian is that every now and then someone approaches me to tell an old joke. Don't tell me jokes - I have that. People also say the weirdest things, sometimes sarcastic things, and even evil things. They like to provoke to get a reaction.
The essential truth is that sometimes you're worried that they'll find out it's a fluke, that you don't really have it. You've lost the muse or - the worst dread - you never had it at all. I went through all that madness early on.
The idea of having a steady job is appealing.
The idea of Juilliard was that it would give you this toolbox full of skills that you could take with you and apply to anything.
The improv, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.
The Russians love Brooke Shields because her eyebrows remind them of Leonid Brezhnev.
The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
There's a show in America where all these people compete with ferrets, and they don't even do anything. They basically just hold them up, and if they don't bite you, they might win.
Tweets? That stuff kills conversation. And people taking pictures with their phone or recording you, sometimes surreptitiously, is creepy. They come up and just start talking to you, and you can see the red light on their phone.
We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.
We've had cloning in the South for years. It's called cousins.
What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.
When I went home from Juilliard, I couldn't find acting work.
When Jonathan Winters died, it was like, 'Oh, man!' I knew he was frail, but I always thought he was going to last longer. I knew him as being really funny, but at the same time, he had a dark side.
When the media ask George W. Bush a question, he answers, 'Can I use a lifeline?'
When you look at Prince Charles, don't you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?
Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?
Winning an Oscar is an honor, but, between you and me, it does not makes things easier.
With film roles, it just has to be a character either I haven't done before, or a role with somebody really interesting or with an interesting person or group of people.
You can start any 'Monty Python' routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.
You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous.
You'll notice that Nancy Reagan never drinks water when Ronnie speaks.
You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.