Jerry Lewis
I've had great success being a total idiot.Collection: Success
People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.Collection: Famous
Commercial television has underestimated the intelligence of the public.Collection: Intelligence
Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.Collection: Funny
I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can't get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That's in friendship, that's a deal, that's a commitment. Don't give me paper - I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that's for life.Collection: Friendship
I was once six feet tall, but at 85, I'm now five feet four.
Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.
You want to know why Barbra Streisand is so difficult? Because she's brilliant. She's a brilliant entertainer, she's a brilliant lady, and she's a wonderful human being, and the community doesn't like it.
My God, the stage is the only place I know where to go.
I don't want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.
Interviews are vital, but you cannot allow an interviewer to take your life and disturb it.
When you're 89, dementia develops. I mean, I've told a story onstage, and I'm telling it with a full heart, and I forgot the damn punch line.
My Judaism has always been a great pride with me.
The beauty of love, as far as I'm concerned, is it makes you better. It makes you stronger. It gives you direction. It gives you understanding of what life is and what we've been given.
I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.
You can ask me anything you want. That doesn't mean I'm going to answer you.
I don't like any female comedians.
I get paid for what most kids get punished for.
I want to know why the government of this country can't take care of the people who are keeping us safe?
Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!
I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.
When I'm working, I stay in ICU in any hospital that will get me a bed.
Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.
Marilyn Monroe was a fabulous dame - fabulous.
When I arrived in Las Vegas, I felt I was embraced by it.
I say to everybody, love is what wakes you up in the morning, love is what makes you walk, and love is what makes you hope.
I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.
I've never been more than 9 years old.
I feel I have been a part of some very wonderful films, and I have had it in mind when I was on the set, every day, that what I am doing has meaning.
I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have, and I never will.
When I was onstage doing the work, adrenaline killed the pain because I never hurt in front of an audience.
I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I'm an entertainer for 75 years.
Billy Crystal, Steve Martin do wonderful things.
You can't hold comedy back, because it needs to be exposed.
My family was as absolute as the work.Family was first always.
I need the applause.
I really am opinionated, but not for long. I have found myself coming off of what I think of something because the guy I'm talking to makes better sense than I am. I have so many points of view, I can't keep track of 'em, because I talk to too many people... I'm not so opinionated that I won't budge.
I believe when you go out there, you have a responsibility to deliver. I have old-fashioned thinking when I'm out there.
Turning 90 is not for sissies.
When I get an idea, I start to write like I was electrically motivated.
You can't be faulted for being selfish if you're going to get better because of it.
This is the pain pacemaker. I've got a battery under my skin. From that battery are two electrodes that go into the spine where they cut bone away to accommodate it. Now I put on the power here. If I have the pain, the stimulator starts. It's tingling, like when your foot falls asleep, you know?
An only child, I always wanted a large hug-house.
We're leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth... or couldn't get better jobs in the first place.
Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude; you have to bring a different kind of concentration.
If you're an old pro, you know how well you're doing when you're doing it, and your inner government spanks you if you're not doing well.
My ego and my vanities have nothing to do with comedy.
Adrenaline is so strong that none of us understand it.
When you are debilitated, and you're very depressed, and you believe there's no hope, you cannot get a better potpourri of down.