Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
I don't think too much about age. Maybe if you're hurting, aching and arthritic, then you think about it a lot. But I don't.
People have told me, 'My dad passed on, but I have great memories of watching your shows with him.' It doesn't get any better than that.
I'm not a classically trained actor. I'm not a product of Stavlovski method or anything like that.
I worked in accounting for two and a half years, realized that wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and decided I was just going to give comedy a try.
You may have done 20 great shows in a row and come to one, and it doesn't work. You never presume anything.
The only way to survive is to have a sense of humour.
The best advice I was probably given and the best advice I could give someone who is trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.
The first time I heard Richard Pryor, I knew he would be a major force in the world of comedy.
If you look at Jack Benny, George Burns, or Don Rickles, they've all had long, successful marriages. So, I think there's something about laughter and the durability of a marriage.
There isn't a comedian in the world that hasn't bombed.
I just don't think most people put myself and Robert Frost in the same category.
Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright.
I would say I came from upper middle class family.
I was an accountant in Chicago, and a friend of mine, Ed Gallagher, was in advertising. At 4:30 every day I'd be bored, and I would call him. He'd interview me.
I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened.
I found the most difficult thing when you became successful - when I had the record album, it won Album of the Year - that you were cut off from the source of your material. Your material was everyday people, and you were kind of cut off from that, and you had to work at it.
It's kind of hard coming from 'Saturday Night Live,' which is a sketch-driven show, to a movie.
Well I was much too practical to presume to have a career in comedy.
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever.
