Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.
Carol Burnett
When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.
Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.
You have to go through the falling down in order to learn to walk. It helps to know that you can survive it. That's an education in itself.
When things are a disappointment, try not to be so discouraged.
We don't stop going to school when we graduate.
Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.
I liked myself better when I wasn't me.
My interesting diet tips are eat early and don't nosh between meals. I mean, I can pack it away.
It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.
I don't have false teeth. Do you think I'd buy teeth like these?
I love the writing. I love the idea of typing and seeing it on the computer and printing it out myself and, you know, moving sentences around. I like that.
It's also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. That's why we're here, after all, to help others.
Because nobody goes through life without a scar.
It costs a lot to sue a magazine, and it's too bad that we don't have a system where the losing team has to pay the winning team's lawyers.
Comedy is tragedy - plus time.
Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.
My preference is for people who can do sketch comedy or situational comedy, where it's not a joke, but it's telling a story.
Just scream! You vent, and the body just feels good after a good old yell.
I have an iPhone, and I can text, and I can use the phone, and I can even take pictures with it.
Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.
I was in California, and I was going to UCLA, and I knew I certainly didn't have movie star looks. I remember seeing pictures and photos of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, who were kind of average looking. I said, 'Well, that's for me, then, to go back to New York and try to be in musical comedy on Broadway.'
We all get where we're going by circuitous journeys, and some of the setbacks are warranted.
But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life. I didn't even ask to be famous. All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.
But I don't begrudge anybody, because I know how hard it is to have that dream and to make it happen, whether or not it's just to put a roof over your head and food on the table.
My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.
I love to write. I have always loved writing. That was my first love.
I'm not always optimistic. You wouldn't have all cylinders cooking if you were always like Mary Poppins.
My favourite comedian, of course, is Tim Conway. He has a way about him - being that belly-laugh kind of funny, and he has the improvisational skills, too. I've never seen anybody better.
In '57, I got a job at the Blue Angel nightclub, and a gentleman named Ken Welch wrote all my material for me. I lived at a place called the Rehearsal Club that was actually the basis for a play called Stage Door.
I come from Texas, and my grandmother and mother were born in Arkansas.
It all happened the way it was supposed to. I wouldn't change anything. I had such a great run.
I never felt cynical, and I never felt that I couldn't do what I wanted to do.
I loved the Kennedy Center Honors because you just sit there, smile, wave, and cry.
Originally, I came from Texas, and we lived on - I guess you'd call it welfare, what we called relief.
What I like to write about is stuff I know. I don't think I could write a novel. I don't think I have it in me to come up with those kinds of characters.
Steve Martin in 'All of Me,' when he did that whole thing where he was possessed by the spirit in his body? It was brilliant.
I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.
I was once asked to do my Tarzan yell at Bergdorf Goodman, and a guard burst in with a gun! Now I only do it under controlled circumstances.
I think the reason I was successful is that I was never cynical.
I was kind of shy as a kid. I was a pretty good student. I was a wallflower, or nerd, if you will.
I was very entertained by Betty Grable and Judy Garland.
I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.
Funny is funny. I dare anyone to look at Tim Conway and Harvey Korman doing the dentist sketch, which is more than 40 years old, and not scream with laughter.
I have a great memory.
I've always been able to recount things, and I have a really good memory about dialog and what people have said before and this and that.
I'm so happy with what has happened in my life.
I'm really not that funny in real life! But I am the best audience one could find. I love to laugh.
I love 'Modern Family.' And I love 'Glee' - the singing, the music - Jane Lynch just kills me.
