Don Rickles Quotes

Every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend!

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

No matter where you go in this world, you will always find a Jew sitting in the beach chair next to you.

I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He'd just pick up the couch and walk out of the room.

When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don't mind, but he has it in his back pocket.

I never could tell a joke. I just started talking to the audience, and when the drunks would yell, "Hey, when do the broads come on?" I got good at saying, "Relax. Clear your skin up first." They called me "the insult guy," but it's never mean-spirited. I'm just exaggerating everything about us and about life.

When you stand alone and sell yourself, you can't please everyone. But when you're different, you can last.

Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?

I always rib people, but nobody ever gives me a hard time. I don't know why. Maybe they're afraid of what I might say. There's probably a lesson in that somewhere, but I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I'm not a black.

I used to play golf. I wanted to be a better player, but after a while I realized I'd always stink. And that's when I really started to enjoy the game.

Some people say funny things - but I say things funny.

Famous people are deceptive. Deep down, they're just regular people. Like Larry King. We've been friends for forty years. He's one of the few guys I know who's really famous. One minute he's talking to the president on his cell phone, and then the next minute he's saying to me, Do you think we ought to give the waiter another dollar?

You got to have a lot of courage. Secondly, whatever it is you're doing you have to believe in it wholeheartedly. Thirdly, you have to be able to stand up in front of people and know that they'll laugh.

Once in a while, when I'm alone, I think about my age. I think, How many more years do I have on this earth? But I can't really conceive of dying. Somehow, in my head, I don't think I'll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it'll never come to me. It's crazy, but there it is.

Some people call me a legend and the last of the greats, and I appreciate it.

Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.

My style is my personality. It's always been that way. Being a wiseguy and having fun. It's always been that way for me, when I was in high school, and in the Navy. It's not something I rehearse.

I have no idea what I'm going to say when I stand up to give a toast. But I do know that anything I say I find funny.

If I were to insult people and mean it, that wouldn't be funny.

I've never walked off stage and said, I shouldn't have done that. Because when you do what I do, you're like a fighter. You throw the right hand and say, That's what got me to this dance. You can't have doubt. If you have doubt, there's no show.

It's very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that.

Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones.

I think they [Martin Scorsese, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra] liked my honesty. My personality. For that, they always treated me great. I, in turn, treated them great. No secret about it. My being who I am - that is that.

Women were afraid of me, they were scared to death. But I always say be yourself, if you're funny then let your sense of humor go there. I mean there's no sense hiding what you feel.

I have a problem, if the light goes on on TV and it blinks midnight, I don't know how to fix it.

Regis Philbin is very successful in his own right. We have a new thing where he have chairs and we sit and talk to each other about my career and his career. It works pretty well if I do say so.

When you talk about George Burns you're talking about a living legend . . . well, a legend, anyhow.

I've never had guys sit me down and say this is what you've got to do. It's my personality that makes me one of a kind, and I believe that.

I can sit all day in a comfortable chair and watch ball games, but I don't need a blanket.

You throw your best punch, otherwise don't do it.

You can't study comedy; it's within you. It's a personality. My humor is an attitude.

I always say that comedians and actors were all kind of shy when they were young. I was very, believe it or not, kind of embarrassed as a child. But my mother was a very strong lady and she was the one that kept it going when I thought it would be over for me as a performer. She was always my inspiration and she was a big influence on me.

Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap.

I don't care if the average guy on the street really knows what I'm like, as long as he knows I'm not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I'm really like. That's what's important.

Struggling is hard because you never know what's at the end of the tunnel.

My main success was an attitude. Always an attitude.

I've got an accountant who's been with me forty years. If he makes a mistake, he dies.

They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities.

Who am I to judge is what I say. I'm 90 years old, for crying out loud, and I don't sit in any chariot.

Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke, one bit of humor.

I'm not a big one for jokes. I can't tell a joke, believe it or not. If you gave me a thousand bucks and said, "Don, get up at a party and tell a joke," I'm the worst.

Whatever you do to gain success, you have to hang in there and hope good things happen. Always think positive.

An insult comic is the title I was given. What I do is exaggeration. I make fun of people, at life, of myself and my surroundings.

I was with George Washington at Valley Forge, sitting around before an attack... gimme a break. That's over 70 years ago already.

I don't feel an obligation to give everyone a hard time, but when they're important people, it's fun.

I do situations and make fun of authority and life.

I've never had a writer, and I'm proud of that. Everything I've per­formed has been from my own head.

I'm very shy so I became very outgoing to protect my shyness.

Showbiz is great if you're successful.