Top 70 Dick Van Dyke Quotes

Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I’m just going to put: ‘Glad I Could Help.’

The thing I’m most proud of is my family, the way they’ve turned out.

No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago.

I’ve retired so many times now it’s getting to be a habit.

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there’s a great feeling of: ‘Hey, I’m free as a bird.’

I like ‘The Office.’ I particularly like the British version with Ricky Gervais. Of course, I liked the ‘Seinfeld’ show a lot. I thought that was an awfully good show.

I don’t play golf. I have more fun singing and dancing.

So I think we’re kind of an alternate choice for people who have had it with sex and violence.

The American people hit the streets and did something that the government wouldn’t do: the Civil Rights Act. It didn’t go down well with the corporate world.

Put me on solid ground and I’ll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving.

That rule about having to act one’s age? I just don’t buy it.

I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I’ve never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I’ve done had them. It was like doing a little play.

I don’t have any children; I have four middle-aged people.

I think, the ‘Van Dyke Show’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn’t want it to end.

I loved to fall down.

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we’ll likely not see another like him.

Stan said he used to keep Hardy late, make him miss his golf game, and really get him mad.

We had all week to rehearse. An audience would come in at the end of the week and we’d our little show. Most of the ad- libbing happened during the week on the show.

I’ve been talking about retiring for years. It’s my standard answer to the question, ‘What are your future plans?’ The truth is, I’ll always want to do things that are worthwhile or fun.

I cannot tell you what it means when children recognize. This is about the third generation for me. And when kids that small recognize me, it really pleases me, very gratifying.

I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don’t know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.

I’ve had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the ‘Van Dyke Show.’ They said it looked like fun.

I have a lot of friends who say that one of the freedoms of being older is you don’t care what other people think, which I don’t think is right. You care what other people think, but if you’re comfortable in your own skin, that doesn’t bother you.

I was born in the Coolidge administration. Can you believe that? So I’ve seen a lot of politics.

I was the class clown, you know, that kind of thing, and I gathered around me a group of guys who also were silly. I was in all the plays and everything. But I don’t know, at that time show businesses looked like the moon, you know, it was so far away. I wanted to be a radio announcer.

I get little kids who recognize me from ‘Mary Poppins,’ and it just delights me because it’s our third generation.

My father made about $25 a week. We always lived just on the edge.

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn’t teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn’t had a family myself, I probably never would’ve done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility.

My favorite unknown movie is ‘The Comic.’

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians – Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I’d go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I’d seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young.

I didn’t even start dancing until I was in my thirties, and it was like flying.

My life has been a magnificent indulgence.

My son Barry, of course, has been on from the beginning. And his son Shane is playing now a med student regularly on the show. And at one point or another, I’ve had all four of his kids on the show.

It’s quite hard to act yourself all the time.

I’m really in retirement. My career is over. I’m just playing now and having a great time. I like to keep busy, and I’m doing what’s fun for me.

Once you’re dead, your worries are over.

All that nipping and tucking doesn’t make you look younger – only stranger.

I’ve won several Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, so maybe somebody will let me have an Oscar, and then I’ll have a full set.

I don’t think we’ve got much of a chance to tell you the truth. But our main problem is our audience skews a little older than most shows, and I don’t think our people can stay up that late. I certainly can’t.

Just knowing you don’t have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn – and those are all good things.

Today, if you’re not an alcoholic, you’re nobody.

I worked nightclubs all through my 20s, and I was a teetotaler.

So as my kids will tell you, they had a pretty normal life.

Dick Martin was a good buddy, and he was always a lot of fun to have around.

Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing.

Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night.

Television’s going, as far as I’m concerned, downhill, and I’m an anachronism.

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He – I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know.

I never had a lot of drive, but because I had family responsibilities, I had a lot of tenacity – the tenacity of a drowning man.

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said ‘Yes, but it hurts now.’ That’s exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!

Emotionally, I’m about 13.

Everyone should dance. And everyone should sing. People say, ‘Well, I can’t sing.’ Everybody can sing. That you do it badly is no reason not to sing.

The secret to keeping moving is keeping moving.

There are no sure answers, only better questions.

My wife, as proud as she was of me, hated show business for good reasons. There was something about the spouse always being pushed out of the way, shoved aside. She wanted to get away from it.

Rob Petrie is who I really am – in personality and general ineffectiveness.

A lot of violence, a lot of gore in it, and I just didn’t want to do that kind of thing.

You know, I’m almost out of the habit of watching episodic television now.

I think most people will tell you that. They can go along and, while they’re denying that they are addicted, say it’s stress this, it’s this, it’s that. But I – it’s – I think – I really believe there is a gene. Some people become addicted and others don’t.

Divorce is something that I never dreamed would happen to me. But it did.

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.

I have four kids, seven grandkids, and four great-grandkids. Maybe I can become a great-great-grandfather if I hang on!

I love to harmonize.

All of us involved say ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ was the best five years of our lives. We were like otters at play.

I did a ‘Golden Girls’ once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.

I grew up in Danville, Illinois, right in the middle of the state.

If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.

I don’t think parents can protect their kids in this media-nut culture.

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that’s literally 70 years.

When I auditioned for ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ on Broadway, Gower Champion said, ‘You’ve got the job!’ I said, ‘Mr. Champion, I can’t dance.’ He said, ‘We’ll teach you what you need to know.’