Carol Burnett Quotes

Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.

You know, one wonderful thing that came out of my Enquirer experience is that, in my case, it was ruled tabloids are magazines. Which means they didn't have the protection that a newspaper has.

My grandmother and I saw an average of eight movies a week, double features, second run.

I always preferred working with somebody so I could look into their eyeballs and play tennis.

No one ever said life was fair. Just Eventful.

There's a quote of hers [Lucille Ball] that I've always loved: 'I guess I would rather regret the things I've done than to regret the things I've never done.

It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington.

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

Originally, I came from Texas, and we lived on - I guess you'd call it welfare, what we called relief.

People invite me to dinner not because I can cook, but because I like to clean up. I get immediate gratification from windex. Yes, I do windows.

I think we're here for each other.

I love the writing. I love the idea of typing and seeing it on the computer and printing it out myself and, you know, moving sentences around. I like that.

What I like to write about is stuff I know. I don't think I could write a novel. I don't think I have it in me to come up with those kinds of characters.

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 couldn't get the laughter out of my head. It wasn't career. It wasn't even a choice. It was a calling.

When I was little I would always stand in front of a mirror and cross my eyes. Then my mother would come in and say, "Stop that, nothing will ever come of it!

My childhood was rough, we were poor and my parents were alcoholics, but nobody was mean. I knew I was loved. We were on welfare, but I never felt abandoned or unloved.

Because nobody goes through life without a scar.

Because nobody goes though life without a scar.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't waiting for a scab either to grow or to fall off my knee.

As far as sitcoms go, I thought Jenna Elfman in 'Dharma and Greg' was a wonderful physical comedienne who had great timing.

There were times when I was more at home in front of millions of people than I was at home.

What I do when I write is I just write the way I would tell it, so it comes out just exactly the way I would talk to you.

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

It's also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. That's why we're here, after all, to help others.

Daddy, when he drank, just became sweeter. There wasn't a mean thought in his body. I've always said he was like a drunk Jimmy Stewart.

I very much enjoyed doing 'Law & Order,' playing a killer - that was fun, and they had a family feel around the set, so it was a happy show to do even though the subject matter was quite the opposite.

I do the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle every morning to keep the old grey matter ticking.

The sidewalk was all cracked and wavy, like little hills, and the weeds pushed their way up through the cement. I had to roller-skate there anyway, because they wouldn't let me out of their sight, and they could watch me from the swing on the front porch of the old house. It was hard to skate there, and I kept falling down and getting sores on my knees...Sometimes, when they left me alone in 102 to go to the store, I'd turn on the radio and dance all around the room. I'd get on the furniture and jump from couch to the bed to the chair, leaping and twirling the whole time.

I always felt that I was more of an actress than a - I can't tell a joke to save my soul, but that I was a comedic actress.

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

My grandmother and I followed my mother here, to a house a block north of Hollywood Boulevard but a million miles away from Hollywood, if you know what I mean. We would hang out behind the ropes and look at the movie stars arriving at the premieres.

I never regretted turning down anything, I never regretted losing a job because I always felt something else was out there.

When someone who is known for being comedic does something straight, it's always "a big breakthrough" or a "radical departure." Why is is no one ever says that if a straight actor does comedy? Are they presuming comedy is easier?

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.

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.

I have a great memory.

The audience is never wrong.

I was kind of shy as a kid. I was a pretty good student. I was a wallflower, or nerd, if you will.

I had it in my contract with CBS, a very weird clause that was never written before and certainly not since, that if I wanted to do a variety show within the first five years of the contract, CBS would have to put it on for 30 shows.

We don't stop going to school when we graduate.

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

I wanted to be on Broadway, but in musical comedy.

I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.

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.

I don't eat much meat, fish, or poultry.

My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.

Dance, dance for me
Dance with the stars
Laugh, laugh for me
Wherever you are

Sing, sing out loud
Like angels do
Remember me
The way I'll remember you

Love, love for me
With all your soul
Cry, cry for me
As I grow old

See, see me from the edge of Heaven's eye
Feel for me 'cause feelings never die

I'll remember you
My very special friend
Until we meet again

(By Carrie Hamilton, Carol Burnett's daughter)

I was once asked to do my Tarzan yell at Bergdorf Goodman, and a guard burst in with a gun! Now I only do it under controlled circumstances.

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

Cavort, dear, just cavort

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.

In '57, I got a job at the Blue Angel nightclub, and a gentleman named Ken Welch wrote all my material for me. I lived at a place called the Rehearsal Club that was actually the basis for a play called Stage Door.

Comedy = tragedy + time.

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.

I'm not always optimistic. You wouldn't have all cylinders cooking if you were always like Mary Poppins.

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.