Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
When I was young I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then and I'm labeled senile.
If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it.
When they saw me walking down the street smoking a cigar, they'd say, 'Hey, that 14-year-old kid may be going places. ' Of course it's also a good prop on the stage. . . When you can't think of what you're supposed to say next, you can puff on your cigar until you think of your next line.
I'd rather be over the hill than under it.
A married couple that plays cards together is just a fight that hasn't started yet.
With the collapse of vaudeville new talent has no place to stink.
Maybe at this stage in my career, it's from that younger generation that I have most to learn.
You think that commanding an army grants you nobility? Nobility comes from fighting besides your soldiers, not kidnapping a woman to cheat your way out of battle.
The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.
So Bach, Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, these are all people who would sort of rearrange or take riffs from people. Same thing with rock, if you look at the Rolling Stones doing a cover of Otis Redding or you know if you look at literature James Joyce is pulling fragments of text from other people.