A Quote by Don Rickles

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. — © Don Rickles
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.
Not that I feel like I have a lack of confidence, it's just good to stand up in front of people who don't really know what to expect. Am I going to say something? Am I going to sing? And often when I do say anything it gets a laugh, because everyone's already used to laughing. So I can seem like I'm actually a funny person.
At the beggining of my career, for me the comedy circuit was a combination of desperation and the fact that it was something I could do. I sort of meandered and really had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had a go at stand-up, and I was sort of okay at it. I'd say I'm the opposite of someone that has the urge to stand in front of strangers and make them laugh, but the idea of getting up and telling a story and people finding it amusing always appealed to me. So I'd say it was probably more about that than anything.
I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Van Ness, but that was the first time that I had met him on the Gay Of Thrones set, and as soon as we sat down, it was clear that just about anything he was going to say I was going to have no idea what it meant. I have literally no idea, so that ended up being a really fun bit to find, like "The old man doesn't know what kids talk about." We started talking about red carpets. I was taught how to stand on the red carpet. Put your hand in your pocket and that's it. That's literally all a guy has to do.
Conclusions are based in time. We live in time. So any definition of success is bound up with time. With other things you can say, "Can I yo-yo? Can I juggle?" Usually you have a pretty small window in which to get your answer. Stand-up is different. You can't do stand-up for one night and say, "Am I a funny stand-up comedian?" In two months or two years you'll start to realize it.
You know how sometimes you're talking to people who love you and give you unconditional love, and you say, "But you know what? Let me back up. I forgot to say . . ."You can do that, right? You don't hesitate and say, "Oh my God! I forgot to say that!". You just speak! And you say it all, until you have nothing more to say. And that's your first draft. It's done.
As far as my personality, my friends and family know I'm crazy! I love to have fun; I'm bubbly. People say I'm funny but I don't know that I'm funny: I don't try to be funny and tell jokes and stuff like that, but I always got something slick to say.
With stand-up you meet almost constant rejection. You put yourself out there with your thoughts and your ideas, and you think they're funny, and you hope other people think they're funny too. The only way you're going to find out is when you do it and what the reaction is going to be. So if you're not prepared for that, if you're not willing to go along with that, it's going to be a rough road. But beyond stand-up, in terms of auditioning for acting roles, you don't get most of the roles you audition for - you get a precious few.
[In comedy] you never want to leave the actors hanging out to dry. So you need to come up with funny individual stories for each character, and then you do this sort of comedy geometry, weaving them together. Once you've got a funny structure and you know why the scenes are funny, then you get super funny people to say your own lines, say their own lines, say things in their own way, and every scene is a live rewrite in front of the camera.
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And if you do have to say it, make it really funny so I can screenshot it and save it for later.
I have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I’m going to say, or where it’s going. I have some idea of how long it’s going to be -- but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That’s the intrigue of doing it -- it’s a process of discovery. You get to discover what you’re going to say and what it’s going to mean.
I just find it funny and terrible: someone being very rude and overbearing over somebody who doesn't know how to deal with it. Maybe it's because I've experienced that sort of thing and I don't know how to say, 'You can't do that. You can't say that to me.'
I don't know why I get away with some things. But I'm not a misogynistic, racist person. Yet I do find those jokes funny, so I say them. And I try to say everything kind of in a good spirit.
I envy children who know that they're going to become doctors, know they're going to go into the forces or whatever. I think choice is one of the hardest things, but that's what I try to give my children, to say you can do anything.
When I was going to get ready to take 'Dietland' up, I have to say I was surprised to find that I felt like maybe we wouldn't find a home for it because it's unlike anything else that I've done.
Some may say that such a girl is not ready for a relationship with a man, especially a man in his late sixties. But to that I say: We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love. I wouldn't force her. I wouldn't have to. She would want me. We would be in love. What do you know. You don't know anything. Call me when you've cured AIDS, give me a ring then and I'll listen.
Never want to say anything so strongly that you give up the option of finding something better. If you have to say it, you will.
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