A Quote by Don Rickles

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'm not an ad-libber. If I'm asked to ad-lib, I can ad-lib forever and it's really fun to do that, but I find that well-written scripts are put together very carefully. Once you start to ad-lib and add words to sentences, there's a slacking that happens. When it's good writing, it's taut. I'm not judging people who do ad-lib.
Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib.
In our society, more and more, people are running around offended by syllables, even. People are afraid to say anything. It reminds me of the days of the old Soviet Union, where people would have to go into the bathroom to say what they were really thinking.
I watched artists who blew up before me become parodies of themselves. I wasn't listening to people when they told me that I had nothing to say, and I can't listen to people now when they tell me I'm the bomb, even though I want to.
Can't nobody do what Fetty Wap does. So when I go to the studio, it may be four to five hours max, probably three days out the week. I used to go to the studio for 10 to 15 hours, and I would do five to 10 songs. Now I go for four to five hours and I do, like, 15 to 20 songs. I'm an ad lib guy. Most people know me for my ad libs.
If you ask me about women's lib, I say I don't even know what that is.
I'm a shy guy... I don't enjoy being bothered but I never say no to a fan. I say yes to everybody... even though sometimes you have some days where you don't feel like it, but it's your duty as athlete to do it. Because the fans that pay it's going to make you live, so you have to do it. So I force myself to do it all the time.
The pledge drive has everything going against it as broadcasting. It's repetitive. It's ad-libbed by people who can't ad-lib. It's about asking for money, which is something nobody wants to hear, even from their own relatives.
When I worked with Chevy Chase, Michael Ritchie would say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused.
If you ask me, Now, is it your best book? I would say, I don't really know. I wouldn't even want to say. And I'd even go on and say, I don't even think so.
People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed.
I worked in a schizophrenic home when I was an undergrad. You learned to be jaded to the crazy things they would say to you, but there was one man that I always gave crazy respect to, even though he would say the exact same thing to me every single day.
With any other celebrity, people come up and say, 'Hey, I really like your work.' But with my fans, when they see me, they don't even say hello. They just go, 'AWWWWWGHGHHHGHGHRRR!'
I guess the negative thing that happens to me is that I'm old now. They said there was a generation I was too young for and now some will say there's probably 10 generations I'm too old for. They'll say, isn't he dead or retired or whatever? Or it just becomes fashionable to say "Oh he's not funny anymore," which, I don't know, maybe to them I'm not. I'm more likely to hear that now than I am to hear that I'm unacceptably risqué.
I can honestly say that the fans inspire. There's an unexplainable rush that comes when I'm in the middle of a set and the energy from the fans hit me. I also get really inspired through collaborations. I've learned so much from the emerging producers I've worked with just as they've learned from me.
Here am I, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage lost of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in your service, and to promote your kingdom
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