Carl Reiner Quotes

"I served in World War II in our fight to defeat fascism."

"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."

"Every morning, I would actually look at the obituaries before I had breakfast. And as a joke I said if I was not in it, I would have the breakfast."

"Even failures can turn into something positive if you just keep going. I wrote a television pilot called 'Head of the Family.' CBS didn't want it. It was considered a failure. But we reworked it. A year later, it became 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'"

"The key to longevity is to interact with other people."

"My parents loved comedies, so we saw Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Ritz Brothers, and the Marx Brothers. I wanted to be one of them."

"Everybody wants to laugh - you know that. They need to laugh... people need to laugh."

"It's like a bird. If he knew what he was doing, he would fall."

"You can get the best out of people if they're happy and not worried or not frightened that they're going to make a mistake."

"'The Dick Van Dyke Show' was my labor of love. When asked the best thing I ever did - that was it. I wrote it originally for myself."

"The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh."

"There's nothing more satisfying than having an idea and seeing it through to find out that, not only did you like it, but the audience and critics all seemed to agree."

"I know Samantha Bee, and I know she's not a racist or anything."

"I figure I'm just one of many people. I'm not that different from anybody else, and I don't have great language, highfalutin' language - I'm very ordinary. So I figure if I write about myself, other people with similar feelings and experiences would go, 'Oh, that's me.'"

"The death of your beloved is the hardest time of all."

"If you write, write about what you do and who you are, and you can't be wrong. Don't lie about anything. You are very similar to everybody else in the world. You love, you hate, you have friends, you have enemies. Be who you are."

"A fellow who has a funny bone can learn to hone his skills, but I don't think you can develop a funny bone - you either have it or you don't. And by the way - when you get it, we don't know it."

"Comedians are really writers who don't have pens and pencils about them, but they riff."

"I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed."

"I'm a charming coward; I fight with words."

"If you can get a laugh out of a name, you're ahead of the game."

"When I was 20-something, 30, I fell down a flight of stairs and hurt my back. I went to a therapist who said don't get out of bed until you do certain stretches, and I've been doing them ever since. I guess I'm the original yogi."

"It's one thing for a father to say, 'Oh, my son is great.' But to have others say it - that's the true reward. Robbie's one of the smartest people I know. He's made such fantastic movies."

"Going through war and living is a very important process. You realize how vulnerable you are and how lucky you are to be in the right place at the right time. As a matter of fact, I have a history of luck."

"I wrote three books about growing up in the Bronx."

"People ask me where I get my vitality, and to tell you the truth, I don't have a clue."

"Anybody who tells a very big lie is paid attention to. If you say, 'Shakespeare could not write. He was illiterate,' everybody says, 'Well, what do you know that we don't?' That's what Trump does all the time."

"I need to see a woman president in my lifetime. Or the first Jewish president."

"'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid' was my favorite of all the things I ever did, because it was like doing a Sunday crossword puzzle and beating it."

"I've lived through the Great Depression."