All of a sudden I discovered that I'm allergic to caviar. It was the perfect metaphor for my life. When I was only able to afford bad caviar, I could certainly eat my fill of it.
— Larry David
Once I know people know who I am, it gives me a lot of licence and freedom to behave in ways I wouldn't normally.
I tend to stay with the panic. I embrace the panic.
I'm not interested in closure. Some people just have heart attacks and die, right? There's no closure.
I defy anyone to produce any evidence that the word 'happy' has ever crossed my lips. I am not now, nor have I ever been, 'happy.'
Well, after the divorce, I went home and turned all the lights on!
When I was living in New York, there was a lot of screaming in my life. I would just get into these altercations all the time. Being in public, dealing with shopkeepers, just trying to cross the street - things like that.
Even though the National Guard and Army Reserve see combat today, it rankles me that people assume it was some kind of waltz in the park back then.
I wanted to make a living, but I really was not interested in money at all. I was interested in being a great comedian.
I was very fortunate to hook up with Jerry in the first place. The network was already committed to doing something with him, so I skipped a couple of hundred steps right there.
It's not every day that you get to be affectionate around something, it just doesn't happen that often.
There are times when I'm driving home after a day's shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would've been so much better if I had written it out.
In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year.
When you're not concerned with succeeding, you can work with complete freedom.
Until I started doing standup, there were some very bleak days.
Most of the time I'm thinking, I'm glad that scene was improvised.
If you tell the truth about how you're feeling, it becomes funny.
I still think of that guy I was without a wife or kids, and I still want to entertain that guy. The lonely guy, the frustrated guy, the guy with no money - this is the guy who needs to laugh.
You have to discover when you're inadequate to be funny and you don't know you're inadequate when you're a kid.
I don't like to be out of my comfort zone, which is about a half an inch wide.
I'm one of the idiots that negotiates after I write.
The lunch in a normal American restaurant is very problematic for me. I don't like to have hot food for lunch.
I can't stand reading anything that I've said.
I have quite a house. People come over and I go, 'I know, I'm sorry.'
I had a job as a paralegal. I drove a cab.
I tell people that I've now done one decent thing in my life. Albeit inadvertently.
I'm really only happy when I'm on stage. I just feed off the energy of the audience. That's what I'm all about - people and laughter.
Hear the birds? Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm deaf and I try to imagine what it's like not to be able to hear them. It's not that bad.
Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Jewish.
You write about what you know.
When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.
The only change I can really see is that I don't have to shop for pants in stores anymore.
It's that I wasn't suited to do the kind of comedy that these people were coming to hear - mainstream comedy.
I've led this empty life for over forty years and now I can pass that heritage on and ensure that the misery will continue for at least one more generation.
People don't yell nasty things at actors - they let them continue.
Obviously comedic styles do change.
Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.
I have reservations about everything I do.
If I was going onstage, of course I would talk about it. How could I not?
I'm not quite as anonymous as I was.
Actually I walk around with the Emmy wherever I go, but I'm very casual about it.
I learned the first night that IHOP's not the place to order fish.
Millions of people are married. I've never picked up a paper and seen a headline that says, Man Gets Married!
I guess I still feel that I'm a comedian; if I had to pick one thing that I feel like I could do, it would be that. That doesn't mean that I like it, but I feel that's what I am.
There's a sense of spontaneity, and no emphasis on jokes in this show. People generally talk the way they talk in life if you were in this particular situation.
It began to dawn on me that perhaps my country needed me more at home than overseas.
Women love a self-confident bald man.
Well, as you know, I'm really only happy when I'm on stage.
Sure, being a reservist wasn't as glamorous, but I was the one who had to look at myself in the mirror.
It has to do - I think - with growing up in an apartment, with my aunt and my cousins right next door to me, with the door open, with neighbors walking in and out, with people yelling at each other all the time.
