Top 77 Billy Crystal Quotes

What life throws at you – you just have to learn how to hit it, which is a baseball metaphor. The ball’s outside, you hit to the right. You don’t let them go by.

Ali forced us to take a look at ourselves. This brash young man who thrilled us, angered us, confused and challenged us, ultimately became a silent messenger of peace who taught us that life is best when you build bridges between people, not walls.

Your first friends are your truest friends, I find. And the ones that stick are really special.

My Aunt Sheila was terrifying! She would put a napkin in her mouth and say, ‘You’ve got something on your face, dear. Let me just scratch that off your face. Let me sand your cheek.’

Doing my Broadway show ‘700 Sundays’ reminded me how much I love working in front of an audience.

I’ve never looked at – with the exception of little snippets – very much of anything I’ve done in the last 15, 20 years.

I was always looking for something else to do most of the time, until I got into the acting program. Then, I really found myself.

I never felt I had my 15, 16, 17 kind of years the way I maybe should have. It’s a huge dent in you that it’s hard to knock out and make it all smooth again.

Our professor was Marty Scorsese. Marty was a graduate student, or Mr. Scorsese, which is what I had to call him, and still do when I see him ’cause he gave me a C.

I have performed my one-man show ‘700 Sundays’ over 400 times now. There were only two times that I can honestly say I was nervous. The first was when I knew Mel Brooks was in the audience, and the second was when Sid Caesar came.

President Clinton knew the course and goes, ‘Here’s what you want to do here.’ By the fourth hole, you wanted to hit him with your putter.

A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it’s really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it’s great.

My granddaughter’s birth has made me want to create things she will love.

We’re in this together. We are Americans. We all have to do the best we can. And we will because that’s who we are.

The Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower. They’re monumental. They’re straight out of Page 52 in your school history book.

I was raised mostly by my mom.

I’m almost shocked that I’m still around after all of these years… and always grateful that I get another turn to do something.

My girls turned out great.

I’d stand on a coffee table, and my cousin Edith would give me dimes, and you put the dimes on your head… And when your forehead was full, show was over.

When I first started, there were, like… two or three critics that you thought, ‘Alright, I hope I get a good review from them.’ And now there’s millions of them.

That whole concept of ‘I want to really go after people’ – I don’t understand that. Is it a roast, or is it an awards show?

As far as the media goes, I’m driving in the left lane at 28 miles an hour.

I’m going to go on just living and laughing and loving.

I don’t go to any of the big Academy parties while the show is on because, invariably, it turns to people watching me watch the host, and it’s not comfortable. I watch at home and hope the show gets to be really good.

I was a good baseball player. I still play a couple of times a week as part of my daily workout. Just throwing the ball, running around, fielding ground balls, you know. It’s better to me than being on a treadmill or some sort of Zumba class.

Mom was so funny and loving to us kids. She was our first audience. When my dad died, I was suddenly alone in the house with her because my two older brothers were away at college. I was the man of the house, and she was the grieving woman.

I’m a baby. I sleep like a baby – I’m up every two hours. And I think a lot. I worry a lot. I have great nights of no sleep where ideas come.

That’s the thing that I’m really most proud of: that I’m still… people still would like to see me. I love seeing them.

There are all these things I want to accomplish. We never know how long we’re going to get.

I watch old ‘Truth or Consequences’ on Hulu. ‘Concentration.’ And ‘The Match Game’ with Gene Rayburn.

As a comedian, you have everything working against you.

Two things I really wanted to be: a stand-up comic or a New York Yankee – or a really funny New York Yankee.

Kids need a happy household. They need to be loved and supported in their dreams. And I don’t think you can make your kids’ dreams your own. They need you to support them in their dreams.

In my standup work, I always do these characters, older people who are just off to the side. It’s easier to write a story about the guy who made it to the top, but the middle is so much more interesting, so much more murky.

I don’t know what I would have done to rebel. I don’t know what I was rebelling against.

I’m comfortable being old… being black… being Jewish.

I was a film-directing major at NYU. I’m still not sure why I became a directing major, when I was really an actor and a comedian, but there was something that drew me to doing that.

From the first time I saw Sid Caesar be funny I knew that’s what I had to do.

Losing my parents, who I admired, loved and needed, it took a long time to be able to move on.

Your success is in your point of view. It’s your life that you’re talking about; it’s your observations. That’s the best lesson that I ever had.

It is great seeing the fruits of your labor. The joy I have in watching my daughters with their kids is great, because they’re doing a wonderful job, and the kids are fantastic.

Performing was how I was able to release this pain I had.

Of course my uncle was a giant, but my dad, in particular, had the house filled with these great Dixieland jazz stars, really the best of them: Henry Red Allen, Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith, Buster Bailey, Cutty Cutshall, Tyree Glenn, Zutty Singleton. These are all big names in the Dixieland world.

Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar.

My dad, Jack, had a great sense of humour and had a strong impact on me and my humour.

I pride myself in being able to survive just about any situation on stage now. I can handle pressure.

All that time, you go, ‘God, am I slipping away here?’ And then something great happens, you get a call, and work begets more work.

My grandparents invented joylessness. They were not fun. I’ve already had more fun with my grandchildren than my grandparents ever had with me.

I can always say I led off for the New York Yankees. It’s an amazing feeling.

Whatever it is that’s bothering me – interacting with annoying guy at a restaurant, contemplating my age, or losing friends to illness – I’ll start to chip away at it. If you can poke holes in it, it’s not as formidable; it’s not as scary, and ultimately, it becomes another truth.

I think I’ve far exceeded what I ever thought I could possibly do.

My parents always looked like they loved being together. That’s what I took from them, and that’s how my wife and I are. I still feel like we’re dating.

Humans love sex, we need sex, it’s how we connect, it reminds us we’re alive, it’s the third most basic human need, after food and good movie popcorn.

One night, I wrote down all the things I was waiting to do with my little granddaughter, and it became a book, ‘I Already Know I Love You.’ It was one of those really lovely things in life.

My dad died when I was 15 and worked way too much.

I have to admit, I was a little bit of a misfit.

You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they’re raising them. You can’t push your way into areas where you shouldn’t be saying anything. You have to always remember they’re not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death – then hand them back.

My mind is always going. I’m always thinking what I need to do, what I haven’t done, what I did do, what I didn’t do as well as I could – I’m relentless that way with myself.

Mr. Hitchcock knew what he was doing.

I never missed a birthday. I never missed a school play. We carpooled. And the greatest compliment I can ever get is not about my career or performance or anything; it’s when people say, ‘You know, your girls are great.’ That’s the real thing for me.

I’ve worn down America.

There used to be that you only had four or five critics that you would look to for intelligent conversation, but now there are millions of people who can just press ‘send,’ and everyone’s got an opinion even if no one cares what they say. It makes things a little bit tougher.

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I’d always go off book and start improvising.

I never stopped believing in us, and I never felt like I was wanting for anything, except for my father, and that was not going to be.

I never worry that I’ll die in my sleep, because I’m never asleep!

I was a per diem floater in the same junior high school I went to. I sat in the office and made $42.50 a day, and whenever a teacher was absent, I’d substitute. I taught everything from English to auto shop.