Carol Burnett quotes

I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.

My mother was very funny. My dad had a great sense of humor. My grandmother, too.

I loved the Kennedy Center Honors because you just sit there, smile, wave, and cry.

But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life. I didn't even ask to be famous. All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.

I've always been optimistic. And I have a feeling that it happened because of going to all those movies with my grandmother in the '40s because there was no cynicism.

Funny is funny. I dare anyone to look at Tim Conway and Harvey Korman doing the dentist sketch, which is more than 40 years old, and not scream with laughter.

I was raised going to the movies with my grandmother as a kid. And then I'd come home, and my best friend and I would act out the films that we saw.

Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.

My mother was very funny. My dad had a great sense of humor. My grandmother, too.

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.

My mother was very funny. My dad had a great sense of humor. My grandmother, too.

Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.

Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.

But I don't begrudge anybody, because I know how hard it is to have that dream and to make it happen, whether or not it's just to put a roof over your head and food on the table.

I'm really not that funny in real life! But I am the best audience one could find. I love to laugh.

You have to go through the falling down in order to learn to walk. It helps to know that you can survive it. That's an education in itself.

My interesting diet tips are eat early and don't nosh between meals. I mean, I can pack it away.

Edgy is fine - I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination - but what's wrong with a good ol' belly laugh? I miss that.

It costs a lot to sue a magazine, and it's too bad that we don't have a system where the losing team has to pay the winning team's lawyers.