Quotes

If people want to think I get drunk and stay out all night, let 'em. That's how I got here, you know.

I've got seven kids. The three words you hear most around my house are "Hello", "Goodbye" and "I'm pregnant".

[to critics who complained that he joked his way through songs during concert and nightclub appearances] You wanna hear it straight, buy the album.

[upon filing for divorce from his second wife] I know it's the gentlemanly thing to let the wife file. But, then, everybody knows I'm no gentleman.

I drink because my body craves, needs alcohol. I don't drink, my body's a drunk.

[on Joey Bishop] Most people think of [him] as just a replacement for Johnny Carson. That's NOT true. We in show business know better: we don't think of him at ALL.

[on Phyllis Diller] Phyllis is the woman of about whom Pablo Picasso once said, "Somebody throw a drop cloth over that."

[on Frank Sinatra] In high school, Frank never participated in extra-curricular activities, like nature study, paintings or ceramics. Frank's hobby was a most interesting one: he was an amateur gynecologist.

[on James Stewart] There's a statue of Jimmy Stewart in the Hollywood Wax Museum, and the statue talks better than he does.

[on Orson Welles] What can you say about Orson Welles that Don Rickles hasn't already said about him?!

[on Bob Hope] As a young boy, Bob didn't have much to say. He couldn't afford writers then.

[on Don Rickles] Don's idea of a fun evening is to show home movies of the attack on Pearl Harbor...with a laugh track.

[on Johnny Carson] Johnny Carson is a comedian who is seen every night in millions of bedrooms all over America...and that's why his last wife left him.

[on Milton Berle] Milton Berle is an inspiration to every young person that wants to get into show business. Hard work, perseverance, and discipline: all the things you need . . . when you have no talent.

[on his teetotaling friend Pat Boone] I once shook hands with Pat Boone, and my whole right side sobered up!

I'd hate to be a teetotaler. Imagine getting up in the morning and knowing that's as good as you're going to feel all day.

I can't stand an actor or actress who tells me acting is hard work. It's easy work. Anyone who says it isn't never had to stand on his feet all day dealing blackjack.

Motivation is a lotta crap.

[on The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)] Someone else, would have laid around, feeling sorry for himself, for a year. But Duke, he just doesn't know, how to be sick . . . he's recuperating the hard way. He's two loud speaking guys in one. Me, when people see me, they sometimes say, "Oh, there goes Perry Como." But there's only one John Wayne, and nobody makes any mistakes about that.

[on Shirley MacLaine] Shirley, I love her, but her oars aren't touching the water these days.

[on Eddie Fisher] The reason I drink is because, when I'm sober, I think I'm Eddie Fisher.

[on Frank Sinatra] When he dies, they're giving his zipper to the Smithsonian.

[on Jerry Lewis] At some point he said to himself, "I'm extraordinary, like Jerry Lewis." From then on, nobody could tell him anything. He knew it all.

[in 1964, upon introducing The Rolling Stones on ABC 's The Hollywood Palace (1964)] I've been rolled when I was stoned.

The whole world is drunk and we're just the cocktail of the moment. Someday soon, the world will wake up, down two aspirin with a glass of tomato juice, and wonder what the hell all the fuss was all about.

[on Bette Davis] Bette made Warner Bros. what it is today, broke.

[Introducing Caitlyn Jenner at the 1979 celebrity roast of Joe Namath] What a man. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bruce Jenner.