A Quote by Don Rickles

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.
I've told Michael Jackson jokes. If you got really technical, you could say those are jokes about child molestation. You could, if you got technical. A lot of this is just selective outrage because honestly, the audience are the ones that tell us that something shouldn't be spoken. The audience lets us know. And I've never, in my almost 30 years of being a comedian, seen a comedian continue to tell a joke that the audience doesn't respond to. I've never seen it.
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.
He never hurries. He never shows his cards. He always hangs up first....Like when we first started talking on the phone, he would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more....[It was] excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven't eaten for a day and a half. Like you'd sell your soul for it.
There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say.
When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
I first discovered YouTube while browsing the web, and then I found people just talking into their cameras. I never even knew it was a thing you could do. William Sledd was my first YouTube obsession. He was so unapologetically himself, and just had fun talking to his audience about things that interested him. I thought - if he could do it, why couldn't I?
I would've never done a 1970's road movie. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. So when he started talking about it he brought up all these movies and he'll do that with you guys and you'll feel the Goosebumps as you start realizing the story that he wanted to tell.
We [with John Logan] started talking about The Searchers, and then he went on to tell me a story about when he first met John Wayne, and he said, "Hey, you be me and I'll be Wayne," and I said, "No, let me be Wayne!" Anyway, it was a very pleasant conversation, it was clear to him that I was a big movie fan, and by the time I got home, there was a phone call, asking if I'd mind doing one scene in the movie [The Aviator].
The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks- they spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does.
I mean, you could lie here day after day, if you wanted to, and think about nothing but waterbugs. Not chase waterbugs, mind you, just think about them. You could spend your whole day, every day, just wondering and pondering about waterbugs, and talking to others about waterbugs . . . and before you realized it, you'd be old. One day you'd realize that you'd never actually seen a waterbug . . . but by then you wouldn't want to, because it would spoil all your beautiful ideas.
You can tell when someone has been on steroids A guy bulks up, has a new body and never gets tired...You see these guys or girls who come onto the tour talking about their new training programs and their diets where they eat this or that new thingbut they'll never tell you about the drugs they took.
An insult is mean or unkind. Milton Berle called me the Sultan of Insult, and I was called the King of Insult. But the guy that gave me the best title - and I use it to this day - was Johnny Carson. He called me Mr. Warmth.
I'm just saying, 'Hey, throw me a bone. How about a smile, cute t-shirt? Look at me.' Nothing - unless it's a turn to their friends to go, 'Hey, why is that weird guy looking at us?'
I wouldn't tell you anything about anybody I cared about because it becomes entertainment for other people, and it sort of just cheapens everything in your life. I would never tell you if I was dating anybody.
I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus.
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