Bob Newhart Quotes

Comedians are never really on vacation because you're always at attention... that antenna is always out there.

I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that. Don't rush into adulthood, it isn't all that much fun.

I love portraying the totally indifferent person.

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

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.

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.

It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.

I was never a Certified Public Accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. It would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.

Well, if you’re a native Chicagoan, you know how dumb he [Dr. Robert Hartley] is. He gets on the Ravenswood El, he goes past his stop on Sheridan Road, he gets off in Evanston, where the El is on the ground, and then he walks back 55 blocks to his apartment. Now, would you want to have that man as a psychologist? A man who misses his stop every day?

I still feel thirty, except when I try to run.

I'm one of those passengers who arrives at the airport five or six hours early so I can throw back a few drinks and muster up the courage to board the plane. Apparently I'm not alone because I've never been in an empty airport bar. I don't care what time you get there. Even at 8:00 a.m. you have to fight your way to the bar. At that hour, everyone drinks Bloody Marys so no one can tell it's booze- at least until they fall off their chair.

There's gratification in making somebody laugh. It's a wonderful sound. I find myself, to this day, doing it, wanting to make people laugh.

Don't ever have two dogs. That way you won't know which one to blame.

I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.

I don't want to find the secret. I'm afraid all the joy will go out of it if I find the secret.

But I really believe that if you have the ability, there is an obligation to make people laugh

Marriage and fatherhood heighten the disillusion that we all think we are born handy. We confidently believe that we can fix things around the house, as if it's part of the collective brain that was further enhanced by eighth-grade shop class.

I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though youre poking fun at someone or something, theres still an affection for it.

Well, my career choice made a difference because I never would have met my wife, Jenny. I met her through comedian Buddy Hackett. He set us up on a blind date and then we got married.

Continuing to do stand-up is always a challenge because the audiences and the environments in which you work very often differ.

I think one reason for a successful marriage is laughter. I think laughter gets you through the rough moments in a marriage.

I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That's the only way you learn how to do it.

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. My own private theory is that stammerers have so many ideas swirling around their brains at once that they can't get them all out, though I haven't found any scientific evidence to back that up.

I think everyone probably starts out sounding like someone else, but gradually you develop your own sound.

I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable.

In today's world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I'm not sure that isn't true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don't know what that would have done to my psyche.

The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.

I wasn't much good. When I went into the line on a fake - I would holler 'I don't have it!'

Sometimes you forget you're famous. You wonder, Why is that person staring at me?

Cell phones have gotten so small, you can't tell who's a cell phone user and who's a schizophrenic.

All I can say about life is, 'Oh God, enjoy it!'

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.

When I started out in 1960, I thought it might possibly last a couple of years. I never expected it to last 42. I take great satisfaction in that longevity.

The only way to survive is to have a sense of humour.

Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.

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.

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don't work that way. There was a temptation in the early '70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

You should have a value system. You can win if you stick with your value system.

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.

This stammer got me a home in Beverly Hills, and I'm not about to screw with it now.

More and more, as I get older, people come up to me and say, 'Thank you for all the laughter.' And my standard answer is, 'It was my pleasure.' But that's the truth.

I think there are still words you can't use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.

The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.

I can't remember the last live-action, non-animated Christmas movie.

Funny is funny is funny.

When you're going for a joke, you're stuck out there if it doesn't work. There's nowhere to go. You've done the drum role and the cymbal clash and you're out on the end of the plank.

The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can't destroy it.

I've been told to speed up my delivery when I perform. But if I lose the stammer, I'm just another slightly amusing accountant.

All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.