Top 66 Bob Newhart Quotes

All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.

I think there’s a little confusion between humor and ‘gross’ passing for humor. That’s kind of regrettable, because they aren’t the same thing.

I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.

The first time I heard Richard Pryor, I knew he would be a major force in the world of comedy.

I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That’s the only way you learn how to do it.

I don’t want to sound like the old guy, but cynicism is a potential danger. It colors our way of looking at the world.

Well, my career choice made a difference because I never would have met my wife, Jenny. I met her through comedian Buddy Hackett. He set us up on a blind date and then we got married.

Dick Martin, if you put a gun to his forehead, he couldn’t tell you a joke.

I’m glad you can’t talk on your cells while the plane is in the air. That would drive me crazy.

What you see on stage is pretty much the way I am… a dry sense of humor.

I don’t think of myself as an American Master. I’ve just been making a living.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you’ve got to be in control.

With the stand-up comic on TV, whether it’s Seinfeld or Cosby or Roseanne, more important than their knowledge of how to tell a joke is their knowledge of themselves, or the persona they’ve created as themselves. So that when you’re in a room with writers, you can say, ‘Guys, that’s a funny line, but I wouldn’t say it.’

I wasn’t the class clown. I wasn’t that obvious. There would be a circle of guys, and they’re watching the class clown. And I’m standing in the back, and I turn to the guy next to me and I say something funny to him, and he starts to laugh. And the guy next to him says, ‘What did he say?’

I worked in accounting for two and a half years, realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and decided I was just going to give comedy a try.

I didn’t know I was cool, but I was very flattered that some of the younger comedy writers came up to talk to me at the Emmys. I found that gratifying.

When you’re going for a joke, you’re stuck out there if it doesn’t work. There’s nowhere to go. You’ve done the drum role and the cymbal clash and you’re out on the end of the plank.

I loved ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.

I’m most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don’t have that, you really don’t have very much.

I certainly don’t delude myself that there aren’t certainly more important things to do in life than make people laugh, but I can’t imagine anything that would bring me more joy.

If ‘The New York Times’ says it, it must be true.

I was never a Certified Public Accountant… I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a Certified Public Accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.

I don’t know how doctors pick one specialty over another. Some you can understand. Pediatricians. Or gynecologists delivering babies, bringing a new life into the world, but how does someone want to be a proctologist? How can you fall in love with proctology?

One time I happened to use the word ‘denigrate’ onstage, and it didn’t get any reaction. So as I continued my act, the left side of my brain was fast-forwarding to see if I had any other big words coming up.

Probably the best advice I ever got in my life was from the head of the accounting department, Mr. Hutchinson, I believe at the Glidden Company in Chicago, and he told me, ‘You really aren’t cut out for accounting.’

I just don’t think most people put myself and Robert Frost in the same category.

More and more, as I get older, people come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for all the laughter.’ And my standard answer is, ‘It was my pleasure.’ But that’s the truth.

I don’t know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there’s a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That’s kind of regrettable.

For some reason, comedians are still children. The social skills somehow never reach us, so we say exactly what we think without weighing the results.

I don’t have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, ‘Has Bob read ours yet?’

There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and ’60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.

This stammer got me a home in Beverly Hills, and I’m not about to screw with it now.

A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don’t necessarily want to be alive.

The greatest comedian I’ve ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn’t afraid of the silences.

I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that. Don’t rush into adulthood, it isn’t all that much fun.

I always stayed away from political commentary. First of all, I didn’t feel entitled. What I may feel about a candidate, I’m a comedian. I mean, if people like my comedy, that doesn’t mean they should vote for the person I like. That’s why I always kind of stayed away from endorsements.

Without great writing, you’ve got a bunch of actors bumping into each other.

The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit.

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don’t work that way. There was a temptation in the early ’70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

I think the thing about it is when you grow up in Chicago there’s such a thing as putting on airs, you know? And you just learn not to put on airs. Don’t act like, ‘Oh boy, I’m somebody.’ They’ll slap you down.

Humor’s a weapon if you want to make it one.

I made people laugh as a kid, but that’s not how you make a living.

The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you’re just breaking in and that’s working, and that’s – you’re one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience there.

I have an aversion to laugh tracks – the moment I hear a laugh track, I go to another channel.

I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’.

Humor is so important to the American scene throughout history.

I’ve had time off, and it drove me nuts. I was crawling up the wall.

I left ‘The Bob Newhart Show,’ which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.

You may have done 20 great shows in a row and come to one, and it doesn’t work. You never presume anything.

Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn’t afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.

Sometimes you forget you’re famous. You wonder, ‘Why is that person staring at me?’

I was an accountant in Chicago, and a friend of mine, Ed Gallagher, was in advertising. At 4:30 every day I’d be bored, and I would call him. He’d interview me.

All I can say about life is, ‘Oh God, enjoy it!’

People have told me, ‘My dad passed on, but I have great memories of watching your shows with him.’ It doesn’t get any better than that.

I don’t think too much about age. Maybe if you’re hurting, aching and arthritic, then you think about it a lot. But I don’t.

I’ve been told to speed up my delivery when I perform. But if I lose the stammer, I’m just another slightly amusing accountant.

The schizophrenic has no sense of humor. His world is a constantly daunting, unfriendly place.

Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright.

Don’t live in the past. There’s no point. You can’t change anything. What a waste of time.

There isn’t a comedian in the world that hasn’t bombed.

I’m not what you’d call a Method actor.

The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.

Don Rickles and I are best friends. I know that might seem strange to those who know Don only by reputation, but somebody has to be his friend. Just to make sure I don’t forget, Don gave me a doormat that sits just outside the front door of my house. It reads: ‘The Newharts: The Rickleses Best Friends.’

It’s kind of hard coming from ‘Saturday Night Live,’ which is a sketch-driven show, to a movie.

You shouldn’t get too close to the truth, because then maybe you stop being funny.

Comedians are innately programmed to pick up oddities like mispronounced words, upside-down books on a shelf, and generally undetectable mistakes in everyday life.