Bob Newhart Quotes
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One time I happened to use the word 'denigrate' onstage, and it didn't get any reaction. So as I continued my act, the left side of my brain was fast-forwarding to see if I had any other big words coming up.
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The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.
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I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.
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I can't do a one-camera show. I don't know how to do that kind of show where you count in your head and then you do the next line.
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I'm most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don't have that, you really don't have very much.
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I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.
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Humor is so important to the American scene throughout history.
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The greatest comedian I've ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn't afraid of the silences.
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Comedians are innately programmed to pick up oddities like mispronounced words, upside-down books on a shelf, and generally undetectable mistakes in everyday life.
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A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.
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Don't live in the past. There's no point. You can't change anything. What a waste of time.
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All I can say about life is, 'Oh God, enjoy it!'
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I was never a Certified Public Accountant... I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a Certified Public Accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.
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Don Rickles and I are best friends. I know that might seem strange to those who know Don only by reputation, but somebody has to be his friend. Just to make sure I don't forget, Don gave me a doormat that sits just outside the front door of my house. It reads: 'The Newharts: The Rickleses Best Friends.'
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Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
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I don't have a stack of scripts.
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Well I was much too practical to presume to have a career in comedy.
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I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda - and I'm just talking about the male actors - there aren't a lot who can act. It's a very special talent, and I wish it were recognized as a very special talent.
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There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.
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I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.
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For some reason, comedians are still children. The social skills somehow never reach us, so we say exactly what we think without weighing the results.
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No matter what hyenas sound like, they are not actually laughing.
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I don't know how doctors pick one specialty over another. Some you can understand. Pediatricians. Or gynecologists delivering babies, bringing a new life into the world, but how does someone want to be a proctologist? How can you fall in love with proctology?
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When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'