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I'm totally aware of how lucky I am. I have health, family, children. I do work that gives me total joy and allows me to make a living, and maybe, if I'm lucky enough, I'll feel I've fulfilled a little bit of service to society because I brought other people some laughter.
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I think I'm funny because my family, my siblings were funny.
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Being the youngest of five, you're adored, you're fueled with confidence.
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I have a kind of objective luxury about my career.
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I've never done an improvised movie as a fictitious character. I think that's the challenge.
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Ed Grimley lives in a retirement home in New Jersey. It's called the Retirement Home in New Jersey for Characters Who Were Interesting in the '80s for About an Hour. He's there with the Whiners, Gumby and Jon Lovitz's 'That's the ticket' guy.
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I've chosen to treat my life more like a party than something to stress about.
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One of my great influences was Don Knotts as Barney Fife.
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All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room.
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I pretend I'm one of the royal family when I'm in a hotel and that the hotel belongs to me - it is a palace.
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People do think I'm Jewish. But we're Irish Catholic. My father had a brogue.
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My mother was the concert master of the symphony. Absurdity and eccentricity were not criticized.
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What's great about being a character actor is you know that you can survive forever. It's not about the gloss of your eyebrows.
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David Lynch and I almost made a movie together in the late '80s. We had lots of dinners and lunches. He's a very cool, hip guy. This film, let's face it, is like an homage to him, I would imagine he'd find it funny.
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I hate to lull the audience into letting them think that something is something. It's always fun to defy expectations.
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I know if I were to drop dead now, people would probably write nice things in the obit.
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I truly believe that when you're funny, you're blessed. Your whole life is kind of golden. I was happy, although it was not perfect happiness. There was illness and sadness and death.
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It's the bane of existence for anyone in comedy. 'The photograph must be funny!' So the people coordinating the shoot throw rubber chickens at you, 20 at a time. Or put a feathered hat on you. Or give you a clown nose. Of course, all of this makes you depressed, so you wind up looking more like you're promoting A Long Day's Journey Into Night.
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I have sometimes imagined my own death and brought myself to tears.
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No one is any one thing.
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I think loss can fuel how you lead your whole life.
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Sometimes people get passionate about the obscure jokes.
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What I learned, a little too late, was that the 'traditional' Martin Short target viewer weighs under 300 pounds. Unfortunately, I was on during daytime.
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You go through publicists because it's easy for a publicist to say to another publicist, 'No'.