When you are debilitated, and you're very depressed, and you believe there's no hope, you cannot get a better potpourri of down.
— Jerry Lewis
I started as a writer. I had the dumb act, but I made my living from writing.
I believe when you go out there, you have a responsibility to deliver. I have old-fashioned thinking when I'm out there.
I don't like any female comedians.
When I get an idea, I start to write like I was electrically motivated.
I think it has helped that I am so curious about what has been happening to me and that I have enjoyed watching the changes through my life, you know? I didn't know what was going to happen to me next.
An only child, I always wanted a large hug-house.
I was once six feet tall, but at 85, I'm now five feet four.
When I arrived in Las Vegas, I felt I was embraced by it.
I'm an unusual man. I know that.
Turning 90 is not for sissies.
I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have, and I never will.
When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude; you have to bring a different kind of concentration.
Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.
This is the pain pacemaker. I've got a battery under my skin. From that battery are two electrodes that go into the spine where they cut bone away to accommodate it. Now I put on the power here. If I have the pain, the stimulator starts. It's tingling, like when your foot falls asleep, you know?
If I found the cure for dystrophy tomorrow, I would do a telethon in four weeks for acute pain that in this country is a bigger problem than cancer, heart, sickle cell, anemia, name it. It is - it's hitting 70 million Americans.
If I was performing, I had no pain. But you can't stay on stage 24 hours a day.
Seeing a woman project the kind of aggression that you have to project as a comic just rubs me wrong.
When you get a question like, 'Did you like meeting Her Majesty?' 'No, I thought she was a slob.' I mean, what are you going to say... The mischief comes into me when I'm doing a Q&A, I'm 9 years old again. I don't get mad. I do get offended.
I want to know why the government of this country can't take care of the people who are keeping us safe?
I feel I have been a part of some very wonderful films, and I have had it in mind when I was on the set, every day, that what I am doing has meaning.
Every day is another something that comes along.
I almost resent being Charley Moviestar. Yeah, I'm grateful. But it takes me away from my kids.
Billy Crystal, Steve Martin do wonderful things.
Marilyn Monroe was a fabulous dame - fabulous.
The film I did with Bobby De Niro, 'The King of Comedy' - an awful lot came to me out of that movie because De Niro never allowed me any room to be crazy. If I had tried to play it the way I would normally play it and get hysterical, Bobby would punch me.
I'm really not thick-skinned - my wife will tell you that I take sunsets personally - but I know that I've got the belly for whatever comes down the pike. I think it's tenacity. You've been there before, and you just have to recall, 'How did I handle that one?'
When I'm working, I stay in ICU in any hospital that will get me a bed.
My family was as absolute as the work.Family was first always.
I turned down 'Some Like It Hot.' See how smart I am? I felt I couldn't bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don't need to compete with the wardrobe.
I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.
People think I'm against critics because they are negative to my work. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn't see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don't tell me about critics.
It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public.
When you're 89, dementia develops. I mean, I've told a story onstage, and I'm telling it with a full heart, and I forgot the damn punch line.
Adrenaline is so strong that none of us understand it.
My God, the stage is the only place I know where to go.
I like to watch all those shows that shouldn't be on the air - reality shows.
My dad was a stickler for teaching me the pratfall. There is something magical about taking a good fall, and when it works, when you get that laugh, there's no better feeling in the world.
Getting attention is my business. My whole life's predicated on, 'Hey, look at me!'
I'm sour at times.
I happen to believe in the human condition so strongly that I don't have to make up games to play with people. Here's what I think: If it's good, let's go for it. If it needs work to be better, let's work on it.
I don't talk about anything negative.
You would not believe some of the scripts I have seen. I have read something like 160 that I've rejected, and I keep them all, for posterity.
I will do whatever is necessary to make better the stupidity on my part - and therefore go after those who are acting stupid themselves. It's not popular. You don't make friends when you do that. And I couldn't care less.
You can ask me anything you want. That doesn't mean I'm going to answer you.
I expect people that come to the studio to work to come with the same energy I come with. If I see less than that, I get very strong about, if you want to do this, come with a sense of pride, come with eagerness and anxiety.
I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.
I think the cartoons that they're children are watching, particularly 'The Simpsons,' they're OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That's not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television.
I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.
