Alan King Quotes

As you get older, as you become more sensitive, feel more, it becomes harder to make jokes. You censor yourself.

My brother is the youngest member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. And I wouldn't let him cut my nails.

If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books.

As a parent, I'd - I'd be a better father.

I just never saw my mother in any other room but the kitchen. There were always pots going.

My favorite way to spend Saturday is in and out of bed, watching sports on TV and eating.

It's not easy being a father, but I've been allowed a comeback.

The ability to absorb a book and make someone else's words and story your own was exactly was I was doing on stage.

I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.

I won't eat in a place that has suits of armor.

As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex. Except for salami and eggs. Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced.

Everything my mother made had to cook for 80 hours, and when she made matzoh balls she didn't know fluffy. Everything sank.

You do live longer with bran, but you spend the last fifteen years on the toilet.

A summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!

Larry David finds a way to make jokes about the Holocaust. It would never have occurred to me. And it was funny.

Marriage is nature's way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.

And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.

If you stop and think about it, nearly all great humor is at the expense of someone or something.

You know you are getting old when people tell you how good you look.

Smoked salmon is for dinner. Belly lox is for breakfast. Don't get that mixed up.

If you keep yourself alive and current, funny is funny.

I'm only ... I'm only unhappy when the reviews are bad, but give me a good review and I'm a ... I'm just screaming all over the place with joy.

You only live once, except for Shirley MacLaine.

I was a high school throw-out.

Banks have a new image. Now you have 'a friend,' your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?

Museums are good things, places to look and absorb and learn.

My father helped me leave. He said, 'It's all out there, it's not here.'

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.

Performing is just standing up there and doing something. Performance takes on an edge to it. It has a more dramatic context.

One thing I've never said in my whole life is, 'Let's have dinner at a Japanese restaurant.'

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

When I get up in the morning, I have to decide what I'm going to have for dinner or I can't get through the day.

Modesty is not one of my virtues.

I made it, Ma - Carnegie Hall. And I didn't have to practice.

My mother kept the house clean and we ate good. I didn't know we were poor until I started giving interviews.

Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom.

My mother's sister was killed in a trolley car accident, so I was raised as one of eight with my sister and six male cousins.

There's nobody to believe in anymore, nobody to trust.

There's a charm, there's a rhythm, there's a soul to Jewish humor. When I first saw Richard Pryor perform, I told him, 'You're doing a Jewish act.'

My son says I never tell stories about anyone who's living.

I always plan dinner first thing in the morning. That's the only way I can get through the day, having a specific meal to look forward to at night.

When I was a kid, I used to send away for those ventriloquist kits on the back of comic books.

Let's face it: It's difficult enough to be funny without worrying about what is going to offend whom.