Best 65 quotes of Bob Newhart on MyQuotes

A collison is what happens when two motorists go after the same pedestrian.

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

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

Because of the spin-meisters and the focus groups and the way politics is run now. It's run by polls and focus groups. So it's even more true today, I think, than it was some 40 years ago.

But I really believe that if you have the ability, there is an obligation to make people laugh

Comedians are never really on vacation because you're always at attention... that antenna is always out there.

Continuing to do stand-up is always a challenge because the audiences and the environments in which you work very often differ.

Don't be silly and don't waste your time.

Doormen are kind of invisible, people don't know their names. They just say, Thank you, or Good morning. I'd never thought about doormen before. They're a vanishing breed. More electronic doors are being introduced.

Every new routine I have ever written and performed probably occurred extemporaneously. Then after you have fleshed it out and tried it out in front of a number of audiences and it works, you put it down on paper.

I don't have a show anymore. I don't have a check coming in every week. This is important to me, I got to score a million tonight or it could all be over.

I don't have a stack of scripts...

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.

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'.

I feel more comfortable in comedy.

I gave up accounting. I went in for about six months writing ad copy. I was fired from that, and then another guy and I did a kind of poor man's Bob and Ray kind of syndicated radio show. Then I decided to stick it out and see what happened. I'd give it a year, a year became two years, and then two years became three years, and then along came the record album.

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'm one of those passengers who arrives at the airport five or six hours early so I can throw back a few drinks and muster up the courage to board the plane. Apparently I'm not alone because I've never been in an empty airport bar. I don't care what time you get there. Even at 8:00 a.m. you have to fight your way to the bar. At that hour, everyone drinks Bloody Marys so no one can tell it's booze- at least until they fall off their chair.

I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn't put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you're hiding behind a character.

In today's world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I'm not sure that isn't true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don't know what that would have done to my psyche.

I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.

I still feel thirty, except when I try to run.

I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.

I think one reason for a successful marriage is laughter. I think laughter gets you through the rough moments in a marriage.

I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though youre poking fun at someone or something, theres still an affection for it.

I think there are still words you can't use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.

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.

It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.

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've been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.

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.

I've done more than I thought I was ever going to do. I've had a very long and very satisfying career.

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

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

I was not influenced by Jack Benny, and people have remarked on my timing and Jack's timing, but I don't think you can teach timing. It's something you hear in your head.

I wasn't much good. When I went into the line on a fake - I would holler 'I don't have it!'

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.

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.

Marriage and fatherhood heighten the disillusion that we all think we are born handy. We confidently believe that we can fix things around the house, as if it's part of the collective brain that was further enhanced by eighth-grade shop class.

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.

One of the first things that you learn as a stand-up is, you're the boss. It's your stage, and don't screw with me because I'll make you look bad, which I had to do, because you wind up with drunks and loud people.

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.

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

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. My own private theory is that stammerers have so many ideas swirling around their brains at once that they can't get them all out, though I haven't found any scientific evidence to back that up.

Television series are like the stock market. There's room for bears and bulls but no room for pigs.

The best advice I could give someone trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.

The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can't destroy it.

The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.

The only way to survive is to have a sense of humour.

The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.