Top 90 Don Rickles Quotes

Johnny Carson was king of the kings, in my opinion.

Sometimes, I knew generally what I was going to do, but I’ve never written anything down. Call it a sixth sense: the lines just come.

I don’t like to compare myself with anybody.

My grandchildren just know me now as Mr. Potato Head.

I ride a recumbent bike for half an hour every day.

Every night when I go out on stage, there’s always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I’m always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I’m not going to offend!

I’ve never had a written script.

I’m a New Yorker, originally. I was raised in Jackson Heights. I went to P.S. 148 and then Newtown High School. If World War II didn’t come, I’d still be there in school. World War II saved me.

When I got out of high school, I wanted to be an actor but was getting a lot of rejections. I was getting rejected by life. My mother, God rest her soul, told me not to quit.

I’m not one of those guys who wants to die on a stage.

I like to think I’m like the guy who goes to the office Christmas party Friday night, insults some people, but still has his job Monday morning.

The man I adored, and miss him terribly, was Johnny Carson.

So, I’m on the satellite every Sunday, no matter where we are, with the Rams. Turn on the satellite; got to watch the Rams.

Struggling is hard because you never know what’s at the end of the tunnel.

I always say, when you’re onstage you can’t please everybody. I’m sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that’s okay. Thank God the majority are in my corner.

You’ve got to be able to sell yourself.

Las Vegas is the boiling pot of entertainment.

You lose your energy, you lose that excitement and it gets the audience up.

There’s a difference between an actual insult and a friendly jab. So I don’t think I’m offensive onstage.

Some people say funny things, but I say things funny.

My mother was a Jewish General Patton.

Johnny Carson was a big influence on me – all of those shows I did with him over the years, like, 100 of them, they made a bit of a name for me at the time, so that part of my life was very good.

I don’t practice or write stuff down – everything I do onstage was just made up before I went on.

Sinatra was somebody special.

To this day, if you gave me $1,000, I really can’t stand up – You can tell a joke. You’re a good storyteller and a good joke teller.

I was a mother’s boy.

Whatever you do to gain success, you have to hang in there and hope good things happen. Always think positive.

I have a wonderful road manager, and he travels with me. And my valet and friend travels with me. My little entourage is great, and they take good care of me.

An insult is mean or unkind. Milton Berle called me the Sultan of Insult, and I was called the King of Insult. But the guy that gave me the best title – and I use it to this day – was Johnny Carson. He called me Mr. Warmth.

I told jokes badly.

The girls, like, in we’ll say Hooters, have less clothing than the girls I worked with in those days. We thought it was wild when they just wore little bells and so forth. But today, in restaurants, some of the waitresses almost work in the nude, you know, to get business.

The inaugural of Ronald Reagan, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. And that was the greatest thing. Ronald Reagan and George Bush. That was – I still remember like it was yesterday.

The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now.

To me, the stand up part in my life is great. I know I can do that. When I get an acting chance, I’m really thrilled.

Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.

The young comedians always ask me, ‘What’s the secret for staying around?’ I tell them, ‘There is no secret – just stay around. Longevity is the most important thing.’

Funny is funny.

Compared to what some of the young comics use for material today, I’m a priest.

I can get an audience screaming in Las Vegas and say, ‘Barbara, that was a great show,’ and she‘ll say, ‘Would you please hurry up? We have dinner reservations at 9:30.’

It takes many years to be a great comedian.

I exaggerate all our selves, our beings. I make fun of everything: of our life and what we are. But I don’t tell jokes, really. I just exaggerate life, and it comes out funny.

I’d like to think my performance is today. I never try to – it’s so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.

When I walk down the street in New York, I swear to God, the building constructor, the guy pounding cement and what not, will yell, ‘Hey, you hockey puck!’

Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

I always rib people, but nobody ever gives me a hard time. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re afraid of what I might say. There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.

I shouldn’t make fun of the blacks: President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.

Most people think the character I do onstage is the way I am offstage, but I’m just a regular guy who spends time with his family and who turns on the television and watches a lot of sports.

Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones.

When I’m onstage, I’m acting.

Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke, one bit of humor.

I’ve been to Philadelphia a lot of times over the years, playing the old Celebrity Room and most of the other clubs around there that don’t exist anymore.

Herb Solo at that time was the head of MGM. I said, ‘I want to live like Clint Eastwood.’ Did I know at that time Clint Eastwood, to him, Heaven was a truck, a dog, and a picnic basket for food or something?

Why should I retire? I’m like a fighter. The bell rings, and you come out and fight.

Political correctness? In my humor, I never talk about politics. I was never much into all that.

My wife, Barbara, is great. She arranges when I do work that I have a day off between performances.

Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.

Honestly, I didn’t realize it – all of a sudden, I was 90. The years skipped by quickly. When it happened, I said, ‘Where did the time go?’

You got to have a lot of courage. Secondly, whatever it is you’re doing, you have to believe in it wholeheartedly. Thirdly, you have to be able to stand up in front of people and know that they’ll laugh.

You know what’s funny to me? Attitude.

I was nice to the people in the Philippines for the two and a half years I was there, because I knew eventually I’d have to kiss up to them so my grandchildren could have toys.

I do situations and make fun of authority and life.

Girls were scared of me because I can be loud. Barbara, my wife of 51 years, is very low-key. She was my picture agent‘s secretary.

I still have drive, but everything is relative.

It’s tough having the last name ‘Rickles.’ Luckily, my kids handled it great.

I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.

I spent two and a half years in the Philippines in World War II.

I never went out looking for glory.

I’ve got an accountant who’s been with me forty years. If he makes a mistake, he dies.

When I was a younger guy doing comedy, it was a big struggle. Promoters canceled me out of clubs left and right when I called somebody a dummy or a yo-yo. Then they realized I was different.

When you first start out with something new, you’re always a little uptight.

I have my own gym. When you do jokes and they sell, you get a gym.

You throw your best punch, otherwise don’t do it.

I was a big shot in high school – big into social events and at the dramatic society – and I always had trouble in school. Not because I was a dummy, but I was always busy being the Jackson Heights clown.

Some people call me a legend and the last of the greats, and I appreciate it.

My whole act is off the top of my head.

Everything I’ve ever done in my whole career, people might not know, I’ve never written anything down on paper.

I write my own tweets.

I was always the guy who made jokes and ribbed people at parties. After I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts I got sidetracked into clubs and started doing comedy.

I stopped smoking. But my personality I still have. I get up in the morning, and not everybody loves me, so if you want to call that a bad habit, there’s that.

I have to have energy because I have a lot of expenses. A couple of cars, couple of dogs and a big estate.

If something strikes me as funny, I’ll put it in my performance.

I busted my bird for 60 years in the business, but my grandkids only know me as Mr. Potato Head.

I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I’d better write a book.

When you do comedy, you can’t please the world, although I’d like to think that most of my audiences were on my side.

The highlight of my career was being at the inaugural gala of Ronald Reagan, and I owe that to Mr. Sinatra.

Everything I’ve performed has been from my own head.

I enjoy mixed audiences, not one particular group. Short, tall, scientists, Jews, gentiles, whatever, as long as they breathe and like to laugh.

You can’t study comedy; it’s within you. It’s a personality. My humor is an attitude.

I was always the guy – out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.

Once in a while, when I’m alone, I think about my age. I think, ‘How many more years do I have on this earth?’ But I can’t really conceive of dying.