When you whisper about something, it's too big, and you can't get it under control and take control of it.
— Joan Rivers
All my way through college, I worked my way as a window dresser for Lord & Taylor, so I always liked fashion. I always loved fashion and I love that we can do it and not take it seriously.
I have no line. If I think it's funny, it's funny.
With plastic surgery, the general anesthetic is like a black-velvety sleep, and that's what death is - without waking up to someone clapping and going, 'Joan, wake up, it's all over and you're looking pretty'.
Sure I do a lot of jokes about Anne Frank. But when you do those jokes, it makes people remember what happened to her. That process of bringing her story back doesn't have to be a serious one. What I say is all nonsense, but it helps to keep her memory alive.
Being Jewish has always been important to me. I now have 6M tattooed on the inside of my left arm. It's only a half-inch, but every time anyone sees it, they're reminded of the six million who perished, and so am I.
I will work as hard as I do because I love it.
I truly think comedy is - being funny is DNA. My dad was a doctor, a wonderful doctor, and people still come up to me today, 'Your father helped my mother die.' You know what I'm saying? He made her laugh 'til she died. My father was always very funny.
My eyes opened, and the first thing I thought of when I could put thoughts together was I want to be in show business. Never wanted anything else. I used to sneak in the costume room at my nursery school and smell the costumes.
You hear things about certain people. When you hear someone was mean to a limo driver or a wardrobe lady, or someone was rotten to a fan, somewhere in your brain it gets stuck.
I've always been salaried; I've never owned anything. I've done very well, lived very well.
I'm grateful for every day I'm still alive. Everything is still working. I attribute it to eating a lot of processed foods. I think it's the preservatives that keep me going. That, and I eat as much chocolate as I can get my hands on.
Trust me, there's not one night a week I'm not in a theater somewhere. I adore theater, and I go out with friends, so I do have some nights off.
Nobody wants to hear that you met Harry Truman... I met Harry Truman... But you know what I mean? Nobody's interested. They want to know you met Rihanna. And that kills me.
Prince Charles is so funny. So, so funny.
I think I was the third person in the world to get a Kindle, and I hated it from the minute I got it.
Acting is my true love. I would like to have been a serious actor, and I plan to in the next life. I'm gonna be Meryl Streep Rivers.
Life does not measure up to performing... Performing is perfect.
I do a lot of lectures on survival. I always say you can't change what happened, so have a little wallow, feel very sorry for yourself, and then get up and move forward. You can't change what happened.
I love Vines. You make this 6.4-second drama, and you can reach 6 million viewer, and make people laugh. I find it so fabulous.
I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.
Reading should be a pleasure, not a chore.
You've gotta understand - when you interview someone, it's not an interrogation. It's not the Nuremberg Trials.
As comedians, we are all laughing because life is so horrible. Life is so difficult, and I cope with it by making jokes about absolutely everything.
I'm a New York girl. I come out of New York theater.
I never dwell on what happened. You can't change it. Move forward. Don't waste your energy on being angry at something that somebody did six months ago or a year ago. It's over. Done. Move forward.
We don't apologize for a joke. We are comics. We are here to make you laugh. If you don't get it, then don't watch us.
I'm always shocked when I get an invitation. People are always shocked when they see me at a party.
Part of my act is meant to shake you up. It looks like I'm being funny, but I'm reminding you of other things. Life is tough, darling. Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything; otherwise, we're going down the tube.
I just get such a connection from an audience. You play with them. I get mad at them. I yell at them. They yell at me. It's just fun.
I've never thought of it consciously... I say exactly what I think, and very often it's totally politically incorrect. I get, always, chastised for it. So it's not shtick. But I think I'm the one who says, 'The emperor has no clothes.'
It's like, God, I'm in my 80s. Nobody, when I die, is going to say, 'How young?' They're going to say she had a great ride.
My audiences get younger all the time.
Every comedian is furious. Age makes me angry. I'm unhappy at not being able to open packages anymore. I'm angry that libraries have gone. I hate children on planes. I'm very shallow, so they tend to be little things. To be honest, I think I was probably angry the day I was born, you know, about diapers or something.
What makes me laugh is, of course, the absurd, the horror - anything that upsets me.
I walk on a stage, and I know if it's been a good show or not. You know when it's been a good interview. No one has to tell you. You know it. You feel it. You can feel the air. You can feel everything about it when it's a good show. And you know when you've messed up.
Your child is never not your child. You can be 90 and your mother 120, but your mother is still worried about you.
My mother loved entertaining, and I've followed suit, so we have big celebrations for New Year, Passover, Thanksgiving and birthdays.
I get butterflies before I go out to say hello at a party.
My career is as an actress. I am an actress playing a comedienne.
When I am on E! for the 'Fashion Police,' I only care about being a critic. It loses me many friends.
Any comic is a very good actor. Look at Don Rickles. He is saying the same joke every night for 20 years and making it look like he just thought of it.
Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It's all funny. Next. Everyone gets so upset about the wrong things.
I could pull my living in and live OK, but I don't want to live OK. I'm very happy to live in my penthouse, very happy I can pick up a check, very happy to have a great life and be able to spread my wealth a little bit.
I made so many jokes about poor Russell Crowe, he once knocked on my dressing room door, and told me he wanted to go out on this chat show we were on to laugh with me. Now he's ruined it. I can't make another joke about him.
Comedy is a very rough beat. It's no holds barred, as it should be.
Show business is - you're there by somebody's fluke. And as long as somebody likes you, and the show is going well, you're fine. I'd do anything. There's so much I want to do.
I had a friend who was a plastic surgeon, so he would do little things. I never had, like, a full thing. So I would go in maybe once every two or three years, and he'd do a little here, a little there; tweak you, like you tweak your car. Then I became the plastic surgery poster girl.
Fat jokes aren't relevant, but they're hilarious when you find them.
I love the Internet, and I love that you can say whatever you want.
