Top 29 Quotes & Sayings by Jimmy Durante

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American comedian Jimmy Durante.

Last updated on December 18, 2024.

James Francis Durante was an American actor, comedian, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola, and the word became his nickname.

American - Comedian | February 10, 1893 - January 29, 1980

Source: Wikipedia

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

Jimmy Durante

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.

Jimmy Durante

I hate music, especially when it's played.

Jimmy Durante

Be a awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down.

Jimmy Durante

Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.

Jimmy Durante

If I'd known how old I was going to be I'd have taken better care of myself.

Jimmy Durante

Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down.

Jimmy Durante

Be kind to people on the way up - you'll meet them again on your way down.

Jimmy Durante

Why can't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone.

Jimmy Durante

Don't put no constrictions on da people. Leave 'em ta hell alone.

Jimmy Durante

What's a depression? The dictionary says a depression is a dent. And what's a dent? Everybody knows a dent is a hole. And what's a hole? You tell me what's a hole! And I'll tell you that a hole is nothin'!

Jimmy Durante

Me and my big mouth! I'd get rid of it, only it's such a handy place to keep my teeth.

Jimmy Durante

Make someone happy, Make just one someone happy, And you will be happy, too.

Jimmy Durante

Home cooking. Where many a man thinks his wife is.

Jimmy Durante

What did Napolean do for relaxation? He read a book. What did Lincoln do for relaxation? He read a book. What does Congress do for relaxation? They book a red.

Jimmy Durante

That's the conditions that prevail!

Jimmy Durante

To his orchestra Stop da music, stop da music! You're supposed to follow da music, not chase it all over da place.

Jimmy Durante

At four o'clock in the morning most people have been asleep for hours, but at four o'clock in the morning the night-club children of a few years ago were just getting hot. The band jazzed at full blast. The air was so thick you could pick it up in handfulls and through it around like snowballs. The dance-floors were crowded with couples who couldn't do anything but wiggle hips and feet.

Jimmy Durante

Don't put no constrictions on da people! Leave 'em the hell alone!

Jimmy Durante

Everybody wants to get into the act!

Jimmy Durante

Nobody realizes that I work 18 hours-a-day for a solid month to make that TV hour look like it's never been rehearsed!

Jimmy Durante

Start off each day with a song.

Jimmy Durante

Be awfully nice to them going up, because you're gonna meet them all coming down.

Jimmy Durante

My nose isn't big. I just happen to have a very small head.

Jimmy Durante

Now you know that you can't go wrong... If you start each day with a song.

Jimmy Durante

All of us have schnozzles... if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them, we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with us.

Jimmy Durante

Everybody wants ta get inta da act!

Jimmy Durante

I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody's big ears, their stut-terin', or about them bein' off their nut.

Jimmy Durante

It dawned on me then that as long as I could laugh, I was safe from the world; and I have learned since that laughter keeps me safe from myself, too.

Jimmy Durante