Top 221 Quotes & Sayings by Don Rickles - Page 4

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

I still think funny, and people young and old still come and see me. That's flattering. The day comes that they stop coming, then I'll know that it's time to retire to the Jewish ranch.

When you do see me, you'll get the idea from when you see me that it's all off the top of my head. A lot of it is a beginning, middle and the end. But it's different every night. I have a lot of jokes in my back pocket I've said over the years.

What I do is, I make fun of people and I make fun of myself and things around us and exaggerate things. And I'm never mean-spirited. See, the word insult means some guy who's a real unkind human being. But I don't do that, because otherwise I wouldn't be headlining all these years, thank god, and all these people showing up to see me.

That I walk around calling people 'dummy' and 'hockey puck'. I do have a different life apart from being sarcastic on stage. I might kibitz around with my friends, but I'm nothing like the person who does stand up. Nothing like that.

I knew most of the people there who ran the places, a lot of wiseguys. They're all gone now. All good people.

The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor.

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.

I'm always watching films. The Academy pretty much sends me every film that's ever been done. I enjoy watching them, especially with the people I know.

I don't get into politics. I know [Donald] Trump, but I don't follow that. That's just an aside for him when he has nothing else to say. He never involved me in any of that stuff.

Frank Sinatra enjoyed my humor, so I could say almost anything to him. I mean, within reason.

Sex is great, but when you get to be my age, you've got to pace it a little bit. Otherwise you get tired.

People think being in your seventies means sitting around in a chair with a blanket over your legs, drooling.

I would describe myself as a guy that's very normal but has the tendency to rib people, but never in a mean-spirited way.

My health, thank God, has kept my brain alive.

I was nice to the people in the Philippines for the two and a half years I was there, because I knew even­tually I'd have to kiss up to them so my grandchildren could have toys.

I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all my years in Vegas.

It's tough having the last name Rickles. Luckily, my kids handled it great.

I don't really tell a joke, I react to situations. The whole thing is just looking at somebody and showing all our weaknesses and exaggerating them, and that's how it becomes funny.

Al Capone's my uncle. The old days were a lot different. The Latin Casino was the big time. When I got there I figured that I was doing pretty good, because remember, I started in nothing but after hours joints. I can't even name them now, but that's how I got noticed.

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

Showbiz is great if you're successful.

I grew up in an Orthodox family, as I grew older, I became Conservative and that's how it ended up. But I've developed that Jewish feel to my act from my surroundings and my family.

Everything I do on stage, I made up in saloons. I started doing it in front of people, and that became my performance. I never had writers.

I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there.

I take pride in being very unique in what I do. Nobody else can do what I do and I don't mean to say that egotistically, it's just something in my personality.

In the old days, that was my ad-lib for hecklers in the joints I worked. It stuck with me. I hardly say it now, say, to fans, even though people do send me hockey pucks.

I always enjoy being full of fun, but I have my serious moments. Some women go for the studious kind of guy, I certainly was not that. If a girl is looking for somebody different and maybe a little more exciting for themselves - someone more on the fun side, I would suggest that they look for a type like Don Rickles.

It's just to break things up between stand-up gigs. I would only do it periodically. Maybe just an East Coast thing.

My father when walked into a room, you could tell that everybody loved him. They really did. He was quite a man. My mother was more into the show biz atmosphere than he was.

I've never been mean-spirited, in my opinion. I never did anything below the belt.

We show a lot of film [with Regis Philbin] from my career which is most enjoyable. I enjoy watching it.

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.

To this day, to this very day, except for television, I've never had a writer. Anything I've ever done on the stage, happened on the stage and I developed it from there. It started doing impressions and jokes - which I did very poorly. To this day I can't tell a joke. That sounds nuts, but it's true. I exaggerate it and it becomes a joke. Everything I've ever done I've done out on the stage and it became a performance over many many years.

I don't really tell a joke per se, I build up an attitude and it becomes a joke.

My father wasn't much for show business. He was an insurance man - very well-liked, very warm. He had a lot of friends.

When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.

So many young people think the big sex act is the whole movie, but that's not the case. You need to be able to talk and laugh and cry together.

Hell, do I remember the first joke? I was never a jokester.

When I first went to Vegas, there were just high-rollers and gamblers and the wise guys treated you great.

When you're 18, you're just so busy being scared and having fun - a crazy mixture - that you never thought of dying.