"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, "let me do the most evil thing I can do today." I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was "good." Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. … I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I'm looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic."

"It's great to be Black in Hollywood. When a Black actor does something, it seems new and different just by virtue of the fact that he's Black."

"Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly."

"At MGM there was a first wave of top stars, and a second wave to replace them in case they got difficult. I was in the second line of defence, behind Myrna Loy."

"Success is a public affair. Failure is a private funeral."

"Roz Russell got so frightened at Cary's glibness that she told me she'd hired a gag writer on the side to interpolate bits for her."

"Roz is in Hollywood, but she's not of it."

"Charlie McCarthy: I can't take this schoolwork any more - it's driving me nuts. Edgar Bergen: Well Charlie, I'm sorry, but hard work never killed anyone. Charlie McCarthy: Still, there's no use in taking chances."

"I am a bachelor and I will not marry. Til the right girl comes along. But while I'm waiting, I don't mind dating Girls that I know are wrong!"

"As we remember Abbott and Costello, As Laurel and Hardy can never die, Rowan and Martin will not be forgotten, But baby, we sure gonna try."

"They found an orangutan suffering from a hernia, Fed him poison from a rattlesnake bite, Gave him the soothing voice of a wild hyena, And he's 'Man of the Week' tonight!""

"Medium talent."

"It was my understanding that there would be no math."

"I'm Chevy Chase - and you're not."

"I want to look him straight in the eye, and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, d!ckless, hopeless, heartless, fat- @ss, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey sh!t he is!"

"[Chevy falls down, and gets up]LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!"

"We're kicking off our own fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the Winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols."

"It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”"

"About his neuroses and hypochondria, the 1920s and 1930s wit Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, once said of him: "There isn't anything the matter with Levant that a few miracles wouldn't cure.""

"The book should be a happy introduction to a character who, if he did not exist, could not be imagined."

"Oscar would have been here at the head table—but he was feeling well."

"I was fond of Oscar, but there was something about our twin natures which made us exchange insults. I told him that I wanted to make a date with him every day so that I would know where he was and could avoid the place."

"[Ira Gershwin] said that [P.G.] Wodehouse will address a letter, stamp it and throw it out of his third-story window onto the street trusting in the good nature of passerby to pick it up and mail it."

"I have seizures of momentary sanity."

"In the middle and late 50′s I was in hospitals constantly. I was committed every time I drew a breath or took an extra twelve pills–which never affected me much because I’m not suicidal."

"I was on Information Please with him and afterward there was a party and idly Oscar sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember how the conversation hushed in the crowded room. The waiters stopped serving and stood, silently listening. Yet, on this TV show, he seems almost a buffoon, as if he is deliberately mocking himself, drawing a caricature of the old Levant."

"When I was in my prime, I was an egomaniac and didn’t allow my wife to buy the best sardines–the King Oscars–which bear my name. I felt there should be only one king in my house."

"I rated the drug Demerol over sex as the ultimate pleasure at one time. Now I don’t have access to either."

"As a rule I never read bad reviews about myself because my best friends invariably tell me about them."

"A psychiatrist once diagnosed my troubles as “an abdication of will.”"

"Apropos of nothing, I asked [Truman] Capote, “Are you for integration?” He said, “Yes, are you for integration?” I said, “I’m for disintegration… personal disintegration.”"

"Instant unconsciousness had been my greatest passion for ten years."

"When I used to speak of the lunatic fringe, I didn’t know I was going to be head of it."

"I can see him to this day. He was witty and funny, always playing himself in the movies. He smoked so many cigarettes, there was a nicotine streak on his upper lip and on his fingers between the index finger and the second one. He was a wonderful guy—but he played the piano like a sledgehammer."

"I am no more humble than my talents require."

"I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself."

"I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients."

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left."

"If George is around, it will."

"It's an advantage having a limited output. When George Gershwin is asked to play his repertoire, he plays all evening. I just play "Lady Play Your Mandolin" and I'm through."

"Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision."

"I envy people who drink — at least they know what to blame everything on."

"The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Democrats let the poor be corrupt, too."

"John O'Hara was a terrible bore as a young man—always looking for a fight, and making sure he never found one."

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

"Ballet is the fairies' baseball."

"Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her."