Top 101 Don Rickles Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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!

My wife came into my life, and my mother still wanted to be the boss.

Compared to what comics say today, I’m a monk, but in those days, it was unheard of to make fun of people like I did. Of course, they exaggerated how outrageous I really was.

I did a few movies, but the word ‘star’… I cannot compare to a star like Clint Eastwood. I used to call Clint ‘Larry Dickman’ when he would come to my show; then, he started using the name when he would go under cover in a ‘Dirty Harry’ movie. That’s why he’s a movie star… he’s so creative.

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

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

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

I never went out looking for glory.

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.

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

Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap.

My life was in Montreal years ago. Best food in the world.

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

Nobody ever dared with Frank, because he had such mood swings, and you never knew how he was going to react. But I could tell the minute I saw him that he was going to be in my corner.

Diana Krall I met in, I think it was Canada. She’s a lovely lady. Her husband, Elvis Costello, is a great star.

I didn’t get married until I was 38.

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

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

Ninety percent of the people who come to see me are my fans.

Somehow, in my head, I don’t think I’ll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it’ll never come to me. It’s crazy, but there it is.

I don’t have regrets. I’ve never sat here and thought, ‘Gee, if only I’d done ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’ on Broadway, I would have been happier.’

I did a picture 40 years ago with Carroll O’Connor and Telly Savalas, God rest their souls, and Clint Eastwood, called ‘Kelly’s Heroes,’ which we filmed in Yugoslavia for six months.

In our day we went from – we went into saloons. We couldn’t cross over like you can today, get a television series and all of a sudden you’re a major movie star, you know.

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.

When I’m onstage, I’m acting.

I say things I get away with, and it becomes a joke.

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

To this day, when I say that I went to the American Academy, people are very impressed. The reputation of the school has always been fantastic.

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

After over 50 years of headlining, I’ve been received very beautifully. But 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 OK.

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

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.

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.

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

Frank Sinatra. Hey, Frank, I saw you in ‘The Pride and Passion,’ and I want to tell you the cannon was wonderful!

I’m very shy so I became very outgoing to protect my shyness.

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.

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

It takes many years to be a great comedian.

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

When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don’t mind, but he has it in his back pocket.

I was in World War II; I cried when they took me in the Navy. That’s the last time I cried.

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.

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.

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?’

Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.

You know how a fighter always comes into the dressing room way before a fight? That’s me – I’m like a fighter.

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

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

I want to be a dog, but I’m a pussycat.

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.

I’ve been hot, I’ve been lukewarm, I’ve been freezing, but I’ve always been a headliner.

When you stand alone and sell yourself, you can’t please everyone. But when you’re different, you can last.

My mother was a Jewish General Patton.

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.’

Bob Newhart, who is my best friend, is one of the guys I adore.

I was 28 when my father died, and I was an only child.

To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.

My wife is great. She always goes to the bank to see if the check has cleared.

It’s very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that.

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

I don’t walk into a dinner party and say, ‘You’re an idiot; give me my coat.’

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

If I were to insult people and mean it, that wouldn’t be funny.

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

I write my own tweets.

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

Sinatra was somebody special.

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!’

Las Vegas is the boiling pot of entertainment.

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.

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 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.

I don’t care if the average guy on the street really knows what I’m like, as long as he knows I’m not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I’m really like. That’s what’s important.