Robin Williams Quotes

My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it.

In the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. And in doing that, you'll find out here's the other side. You'll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter.

I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.

I think 'Dead Poets' was probably my favorite, just to get started with the idea of doing a movie that people treated as more than a movie.

Bicycles are pieces of art. You get that combination of kinetic engineering, but then, besides the welds, the paint jobs, the kind of the sculpture of it all is quite beautiful. Bikes have such great lines, and all different styles.

Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.

When my friends and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker.

Smile my boy, it's sunrise

His golf bag does not contain a full set of irons.

I'm a very tolerant man, except when it comes to holding a grudge.

Ah ... so many pedestrians, so little time ...

Mr. Keating: Carpe Diem! Sieze the day!

Even mistakes can be wonderful

Along with the Oscars, the Academy is giving out a green card.

The human spirit is more powerful than any drug and THAT is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. THESE are the things that matter.

The worst thing in life is not to end up all alone. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.

We were romantics. We didn't just read poetry. We let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared. Women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?

Even evangelicals realize that Pinocchio's father was a carpenter too. That's the old joke.

Boys, you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all.

I had to stop drinking alcohol because I used to wake up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass.

My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.'

I've actually gone to the zoo and had monkeys shout to me from their cages, "I'm in here when you're walking around like that?"

Lance Armstrong pushes the envelope in terms of the human experience. You can have a personal best, you can push your own envelope. For Lance, the person pushing him is him. The only person he's competing with, I think, is himself. To push that limit to the next step. There's a lot to learn from him. Lots.

For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I'm outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it's hardest to see.

You're best when you're not in charge. The ego locks the muse.

The improv, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.

You're going to the cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian

My battles with addiction definitely shaped how I am now. They really made me deeply appreciate human contact. And the value of friends and family, how precious that is.

I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.

My favorite is when you go to Afghanistan and you meet the special forces guys, and they look like these heavily armed surfers. These guys are the best. You see guys dressed as full Afghans, but then wearing a Yankees hat.

Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down. Sometimes it made me paranoid and impotent, but mostly it just made me withdrawn.

My religious background is that my mother is a Christian Dior Scientist

In California, we are a sixty percent Hispanic state, we elected an Austrian governor. Even old Nazis are going That's weird.

Just now when I said, "I have a crush on you," you didn't say, "no way loser". I'd rather have a lobotomy by a leper. That means something

Sometimes you have to make a movie to make money.

If we were interested in making money, we wouldn't have become teachers

To make fun of an administration, to make fun of anything, Mark Twain said, is the last defense of democracy.

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

And some people say Jesus wasn't Jewish. Of COURSE he was Jewish! 30 years old, single, lives with his parents, come on! He works in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift, he's Jewish! Give it up!

I loved school, maybe too much, really. I was summa cum laude in high school. I was driven that way.

The Chinese had accused the Tibetans of being terrorists, which is weird. A Tibetan terrorist is like an Amish hacker. It just doesn't fit.

I was an only child. I did have kind of like a lonely existence.

If we're going to fight a disease, let's fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.

We get to choose who we let in to our weird little worlds.

A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.

You might say he was one taco short of a combination platter.

I had one or two steady girlfriends in high school, but then in college, it was three, four ... I went crazy. At one point I had three separate girlfriends, running around mad.

When you really do find a new idea or you're in and it's all working, that's the gift. It's like a musician when they hit a riff, that's when you're like all right, it's mellow. You back off and just ride it.

If you don't keep pushing the limits, you wake up one day and you're the "center square to block."

Even fools seem smart when they are quiet.

I loved running, but all of a sudden everything hurt so much. I started cycling when Zelda was born.

See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.

Freud: If it's not one thing, it's your mother

The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.

Cricket is baseball on Valium.

What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.

The 'Aladdin' thing - that's not work; that's just fun. Three days in the recording studio going mad, then the animators do all the work. Not a bad way to cash a large check, my friend.

There's no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot.

What's my credibility? Why are they looking to me for advice? Isn't there someone more qualified?

My favorite thing to do is ride a bicycle. I ride road bikes. And for me, it's mobile meditation.

Being a functioning alcoholic is kind of like being a paraplegic lap dancer - you can do it, just not as well as the others, really.

The entire world will be in nuclear war, and only the Swiss will be going, 'what's that noise?'

Anything that is not funny at a certain point will be funny.

Sometimes with a comedy it's just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.

If you're going to do a movie about the Village, it's pretty nice to shoot in the village and not be in Toronto.

Don't mess with me, man, I'm a lawyer!

The only weapon we have is comedy.

2020. There'll be cold fusion. We'll actually be able to power our cars with our own feces. That's right. The emissions problem will be a little intense, but just light a match.

There's this thing called freebasing. It's not free, it costs you your home. It should be called 'homebasing'.

If Heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing.

You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) 'It's the same sex all the time.'

One of my favourite actors of all time, although he doesn't necessarily play villains, is Peter Lorre.

Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six-foot-tall RAT!

Incoming is not the thing you want to hear at Christmas.

If you're that depressed, reach out to someone. And remember, suicide is a permanent solution, to a temporary problem.

There's three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.

I can see it now: Osama bin Laden goes up to the pearly gates where George Washington comes out, starts beating him and is then joined by 70 other members of the Continental Congress. Osama will say, Hey, wait! Where are my 71 virgins? And George will reply It's 71 Virginians, you asshole!

What's true in our minds is true, whether some people know it or not.

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and yelling "You want a piece of me?

Look at airport security now. What started out as definite racial profiling is now where the computer picks a name. That's why you get a seven-month-old getting a pat down. [Imitates a security officer.] "Check the diapers. They're full."

I met Nelson Mandela, and I really didn't know what to say. It was years ago at a benefit. I was just in awe of this man because of what he'd done.

And you get that little endorphin buzz, it's great. Why do you think Einstein looked like that? I don't think he was going 'You know this is some dynamite weed! It's all relative you know'.

I stopped drinking when I had children because I wanted to be awake and aware. I did not want to be going, you know, daddy loves you and then drop my head on the table. I do not want to miss anything that they do or say. It is important to me.

I did an event in Washington, and it was like we lifted a sea.Immediately after [9/11], there was a stunned shock - kind of this feeling of "What do we do now?" I started performing, and there was a catharsis in the laughing. People started to be able to laugh again. Laughter can be many things - sometimes a medicine, sometimes a weapon, depending on.

There's no question this is where I want to live. Never has been.

I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was ... a large Arctic region covered with ice.

A human life is just a heartbeat in heaven.

Smile boy, it's the sunrise
(His last movie line, ever)

It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work.

Kid, if You Need Booze or Drugs to Enjoy Your Life to the Fullest, You're Doing It Wrong.

Reality what a concept !

There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone.

If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.

Seize the day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.

If there was a pill that allowed you to drink and not get drunk, an alcoholic would go What happens if you take two?

I've had a lot of people tell me they watched 'Old Dogs' with their kids and had a good time.

I used food to make myself feel better, but I felt worse when I ate.

My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, "If you want to do that, fine." When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, "Fine, but study welding just in case."

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.