Quotes

Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money.

...And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, 'cause you can't drink anymore. You can't come home drunk and go, "Hey, here's a little switch: Daddy's gonna throw up on you!".

Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.

See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.

Ballet: Men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.

You can start any Monty Python routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.

[on Canada] Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

Comedy is acting out optimism.

[to troops in Iraq] I'm looking at a group of heavily armed people here. I'm telling myself "If you're not funny, it's a problem.".

[on Popeye (1980)] If you watch it backwards, it has a plot.

Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying "I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award." The other is "You want fries with that?".

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.

About comic lines written by Mark Shaiman being removed for innuendo (i.e. "Chip 'n Dale are both strippers") the week before for his presenting of Best Animated Film at the 77th Academy Awards: For a while you get mad, then you get over it. They're afraid of saying Olive Oyl is anorexic. It tells you about the state of humor. It's strange to think: how afraid are you? We thought that they got the irony of it. I guess not.

You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

They're talking about partial nuclear disarmament, which is also like talking about partial circumcision - you either go all the way or forget it.

Countering the complaint that the juiciest roles go to younger actors: They (the roles) may not be financially enriching, but personally enriching? Yes. You are no longer under pressure. You don't have to prove yourself on some levels, but you do have to [creatively] push yourself.

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.

[on his acting career]: All the new people you meet, it's pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.

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.

I believe I could do dance on ice, or play in a musical of Freud's life called "It's Your Mother" - or maybe one for the symbolists: "Jung at Heart". There's always the one about India: "The Gandhi Man Can".

[While accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997)] Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, "Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.".

Australians are basically English rednecks. If Darwin had landed in Australia, he would have gone: "I'm wrong".

I'd play the Riddler in the next Batman, although it'd be hard to top Heath Ledger as the villain, and I'm a little hairy for tights. Plus, the Batman films have screwed me twice before: years ago they offered me the Joker and then gave it to Jack Nicholson, then they offered me the Riddler and gave it to Jim Carrey.

[on entertaining the troops on USO tours] I enjoy it. I enjoy performing for heavily armed people. It's easier than going to Georgia.

There's so much to talk about. The fact that Donald Trump wants to see Obama's birth certificate. I want to see his hairline first.

I was once walking in an airport and a woman came up to me and said, "Be zany!". That'd be like walking up to Baryshikov and going, "Plie! Just do a plie! Do it! Do a releve right now! Lift my wife!".

I went to rehab in wine country just to keep my options open.

Men can't fake an orgasm, who wants to look that dumb, you know what I'm saying?

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.

[on Jonathan Winters] Jonathan taught me that the world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way.

Jonathan Winters was my mentor. I told him that and he said, "Please, I prefer idol".

[on working with Al Pacino on Insomnia (2002)] I loved working with Pacino. Al does this Method thing where before every take he roars like a lion. So my first day working with him I bleated like a goat: "What was that?!" "Hi Al, I'm here, it's just Robin, just playing." Playing scenes with him was a little surreal, because I was like, "I'm watching Al Pacino!" and then I'd realize I had to act, too. I loved talking to him off-set. He plays all these incredible characters, but he claims most of the time he just wants to be in the Village having coffee and discussing Aristotle. Having worked with Robert De Niro (on Awakenings (1990)) I was kind of prepared for the idea of someone who's that intense. (If I ever get to work with Robert Duvall, I'll have the entire Godfather collector's set. Except for Brando. But I got to meet Brando once, so I guess that qualifies.) But like Christopher Nolan, even though he's very focused, he's also prepared to try anything. At that time, Al was flying back and forth from L.A. because his twins were just born, so I think he was way beyond Method acting: he really wasn't getting any sleep. He was completely ragged, and that was perfect.

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.

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.

The truth is, if anything, I'm probably addicted to laughter.

If women ran the world, we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.

You're only given a little spark of madness. If you lose that, you're nothing.

[on World's Greatest Dad (2009) being an "indictment of the modern grief industry", and asked if it's getting worse] Well, I think people want it. In a weird way, it's trying to keep hope alive.

[on if he does or doesn't share the film's "judgment on mawkish sentimentality"] Well, you just try and keep it in perspective; you have to remember the best and the worst. In America they really do mythologize people when they die.

[from his first appearance on "The Tonight Show", October 14, 1981] I was the only child on my block on Halloween to go, "Trick or trout!"..."Here comes that young Williams boy again. Better get some fish.".

[on Genesis] This is a group that pulled off the single most surprising lead singer swap in all of rock history. Their first great frontman Peter Gabriel decided to stop dressing like vegetables and little furry woodland creatures and went solo to shock his monkey. And instead of asking another steadily qualified singer or having a talent contest so Simon Cowell could go, "I'm sorry, darling, you suck!", no, they just looked to their brilliantly gifted drummer and said, "You! Collins! You Bob Hoskins lookalike! Get your ass up to the microphone and sing your bollocks off!". And so Phil did, and it was good, and the goodness became greatness.

It's amazing that medical science can develop a drug to give you an erection, but can't develop a drug to give you mental clarity.

Life's a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those that think. So it can be curse in that you find something funny in even the darkest thing.

Being a celebrity is like wearing a Mardi Gras head - although you're not floating! Obviously it's great that it can get you a table in a restaurant, but it can also get people following you into the men's room with a palm-cam.

The imagination functions on its own. I grew up as an only child, so the imagination was a necessity, like a survival mechanism.

[on who can run for office in American politics] We're frightening away people who have lived interesting lives, intelligent people who might have inhaled, who might have had different sexual experiences or orientations, but who are stone-cold brilliant.

[on George W. Bush] There's nothing Bush has said, apart from a few malapropisms, that we will remember. Comparing him to Churchill is akin to comparing Margaret Thatcher and Paris Hilton.

I had my midlife crisis when I was about 30, so I got that over with. But when I hit 50, it was like, this is cool. It feels like the prime of your life, literally. Things are going great; you've come to the point where it's no longer a struggle. As Rodney Dangerfield said, "Why am I sweating? I own the club!" You're there, so you don't have to worry as much. And yet the object is to keep working, to find interesting parts, and obviously it's skewed more for men than women to find character parts at my age. And, hey, supporting parts are just as interesting as the lead.

My childhood was lonely. Both my parents were away a lot, working, and the maid basically raised me. And I think that's where a lot of my comedy comes from. Not only was the maid very funny and witty, but when my mother came home I'd use humor to try and get her attention. If I made mommy laugh, then maybe everything would be all right. I think that's where it all started.

[on the first film to make a big impression on him] That was 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). I saw it at the Cinerama with my parents and was totally slack-jawed. With that sort of cinema and that film, you don't ever need to take acid! It knocked me out. I love science fiction and Kubrick. That whole experience was so surreal.

Cocaine is nothing new; it's been part of Hollywood from the outset. It's the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it was about getting numb and forgetting. I did coke so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. For me it was a true sedative, a way to pull back from the world.