Jerry Lewis Quotes

Was he a good father?"
To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. "No," I reply candidly. "He wasn't a good father, but he was a good man."
Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more. ~ Deana Martin

A lot of people resent that I've been in someone's life for 50 years. Why shouldn't people have an affection for me and what I've done? Didn't I have to be genuine for them to buy into what I did? There are children who grow up today who will not have that when they're 55 years old. With whom will they have it? Name an example for me. ~ Jerry Lewis

I turned down 'Some Like It Hot.' See how smart I am? I felt I couldn't bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don't need to compete with the wardrobe. ~ Jerry Lewis

When I hit around 65, 66, I started to feel tremendous worth and incredible personal esteem. I was becoming very cognisant of my contribution to the American spirit of helping your fellow man and all of the good stuff. ~ Jerry Lewis

I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains. ~ Jerry Lewis

President Bush has delivered a new resolution to the U.N. saying that Saddam has failed to cooperate with U.N. resolutions, freeing us to get our war on. Don't mess with us France, or we'll send Jerry Lewis to Iraq as a human shield. ~ Craig Kilborn

When Jerry Lewis and I were big, we used to go to parties, and everybody thought I was big-headed and stuck up, and I wasn't. It was because I didn't know how to speak good English, so I used to keep my mouth shut. ~ Dean Martin

I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope. ~ Jerry Lewis

I grew up on Don Knotts and Jerry Lewis and all the guys from Second City. ~ Harland Williams

A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world. ~ Jerry Lewis

It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public. ~ Jerry Lewis

The day you're born, you get the pink slip on YOU. Outright ownership. You must only share that life with those that you and only you choose. ~ Jerry Lewis

I think the cartoons that they're children are watching, particularly 'The Simpsons,' they're OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That's not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television. ~ Jerry Lewis

I get paid for what most kids get punished for. ~ Jerry Lewis

A Madagascar Hissing Roach chasing Jerry Lewis. That would be a really neat treat. ~ Michael O'Donoghue

I need the applause. ~ Jerry Lewis

I have nothing against women. As a matter of fact there's something about them that I love, but I just can't put my finger on it. ~ Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis has been married twenty times. He gets married on a Tuesday, they find his wife dead in a swimming pool on Thursday. Maybe if you married someone who's old enough to swim next time, Ok Jerry? ~ Denis Leary

I always loved all kinds of music. I would watch musicals a lot as a kid, on TV, watch the Fred Astaire movies. I'd watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' I was a big Jerry Lewis fan, and they'd have these big bands and someone singing - some siren, or some guy singing some gorgeous song. I was always enamored of that style of music. ~ Queen Latifah

What I always say is that we're the illegitimate children of Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lewis. ~ Kevin McDonald

People say, "How would you like to be remembered?" I don't want to be remembered. Gimme a break. What I want is to hear what's great about me now. Let me hear it! In the box you don't hear these eulogies. ~ Jerry Lewis

When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, 'Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?' He answered, 'If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you', ~ Jerry Lewis

Comedy is a man in trouble. And without it, there's no humor. ~ Jerry Lewis

People think I'm against critics because they are negative to my work. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn't see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don't tell me about critics. ~ Jerry Lewis

I really am opinionated, but not for long. I have found myself coming off of what I think of something because the guy I'm talking to makes better sense than I am. I have so many points of view, I can't keep track of 'em, because I talk to too many people ... I'm not so opinionated that I won't budge. ~ Jerry Lewis

If I found the cure for dystrophy tomorrow, I would do a telethon in four weeks for acute pain that in this country is a bigger problem than cancer, heart, sickle cell, anemia, name it. It is - it's hitting 70 million Americans. ~ Jerry Lewis

I grew up on Jerry Lewis and Abbot and Costello, the Marx Brothers. ~ Drake Bell

(The Nutty Professor) was a labor of love. It was a total film. It was the most productive, creative work of my life. ~ Jerry Lewis

From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. From the time I was 21, I've taken them on everything from clay courts to cement to wood floors, coming off pianos, going out a two-story window, landing on Dean, falling into the rough. You do that and you're gonna have problems. ~ Jerry Lewis

New Jersey is a great place to live. And we have given some of the best talent to the world, from Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, to Jerry Lewis to Bon Jovi to Frank Sinatra. ~ Queen Latifah

Pity? [If] you don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in your house! ~ Jerry Lewis

I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians. ~ Steve Martin

Not only do I sing to him, I sing entire conversations. You become Jerry Lewis. ~ Paul Reiser

If you're an old pro, you know how well you're doing when you're doing it, and your inner government spanks you if you're not doing well. ~ Jerry Lewis

I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I'm an entertainer for 75 years. ~ Jerry Lewis

The doc told me I had a dual personality. Then he lays an 82 dollar bill on me, so I give him 41 bucks and say, 'Get the other 41 bucks from the other guy.' ~ Jerry Lewis

The young man who's had the Guggenheim fortune behind him all his life - he can hire all the authorities on the subject to teach him how to do a monologue, but he's never going to have the right stuff to pull it off. If he doesn't walk out onstage needing to walk out there, he doesn't have a dream of doing well. ~ Jerry Lewis

I've had great success being a total idiot. ~ Jerry Lewis

We're leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth ... or couldn't get better jobs in the first place. ~ Jerry Lewis

People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius. ~ Jerry Lewis

Historically, Hollywood comedy has arrived in skinny envelopes. From fence post Buster Keaton to herky-jerky Jerry Lewis to wiry nerve-bundle Woody Allen to hung-loose Richard Pryor to whippy contortionist Jim Carrey, its comics and clowns have tended to be sliced thin and bendable. ~ James Wolcott

I like the Stooges. You know what movie I saw that I sort of discovered late was Jerry Lewis in 'The Nutty Professor'. I really liked that. ~ Mike Judge

Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands ~ Jerry Lewis

You might as well like yourself; just think about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you. ~ Jerry Lewis

Make film, shoot film, run film. Do something. Make film. Shoot anything. ~ Jerry Lewis

When I would be myself, I was being big-headed. I was being egotistical. I was a megalomaniac, when it really was just having not to be a monkey for a few hours a day. And fulfilling the need to be a man. ~ Jerry Lewis

Films exhaust me, they do, and I often want nothing more to do with them, but I'm continually surprised at the resurgence of the impulse to come back and do it all over again. ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

I never intended to set out and be a singer-songwriter. I just sort of became one because I put out my own record. ~ Jenny Lewis

We live in a time when there is an abundance of ways we can express ourselves. ~ Jerry Pinkney

Whatever poet, orator or sage may say of it, old age is still old age. ~ Sinclair Lewis

My agent said, 'Jerry, Dancing With the Stars - they want you on there.' I said, 'Ain't no way. I'm not going to do that.' Then he came back to me again, and he kept putting pressure on me. I said, 'All right, I'll give it a try.' ~ Jerry Rice

Robert Kirk believed the fairies to be the doubles or, as he called them, the 'co-walkers' of men, which accompanied them through life, and thought that this co-walker returned to Faerie when the person died. ~ Lewis Spence

I never became a cowboy or baseball player, and now I'm beginning to wonder if I ever really became a writer. I find that I hesitate to put that label on myself, to define myself by what I do for a living. ~ Jerry Spinelli

Hey," said Jace. who was sitting on an overturned speaker, looking at his cellphone, "do you want to see a photo of Alec and Magnus in Berlin?"
"Not really," said Simon.
"Magnus is wearing lederhosen."
"And yet, still no. ~ Cassandra Clare

In short, to enter the lists of literature is wilfully to expose yourself to the arrows of neglect, ridicule, envy, and disappointment. Whether you write well or ill, be assured that you will not escape from blame ... ~ Matthew Gregory Lewis

As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unacquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood – a circumstance at all times unpleasant. ~ Lewis Carroll

Unable to help it, even with his teeth chattering, Stefan grinned at him. "Good. I'm a hermit, remember? I don't like people."
"He's not people," Cordon pointed out, "he's more like a bear."
Golon growled in reply. ~ Jack Lewis Baillot

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~ C.S. Lewis

As we approached each other, the noise and the students around us melted away and we were utterly alone, passing, smiling, holding each other's eyes, floors and walls gone, two people in a universe of space and stars.
~ Jerry Spinelli

When I first called Jerry Wexler, the man everybody most associates with Berns's career, and told him I planned to work on this book, Wexler's affable tone disappeared. "I'll tell you this," he said. "I don't know where he's buried, but if I did, I would piss on his grave. ~ Joel Selvin

The birth of Christ is the central event in the history of the earth
the very thing the whole story has been about. ~ C.S. Lewis

A man is never drunk if he can lay on the floor without holding on. ~ Joe E. Lewis

And she wept as well for the others lost in the Dark War, and she wept for her mother and the loss she had endured, and she wept for Emma and the Blackthorns, remembering how they had fought back tears when she had told them that she had seen Mark in the tunnels of Faerie, and how he belonged to the Hunt now, and she wept for Simon and the hole in her heart where he had been, and the she would miss him every day until she died, and she wept for herself and the changes that had been wrought in her, because sometimes even change for the better felt like a little death. ~ Cassandra Clare

I don't think talking about myself making songs is a very interesting topic, there are so many other more engaging things to think about and write about. ~ Jeffrey Lewis

I have been called a Rogue Elephant, a Cannibal Shark, and a crocodile. I am none the worse. I remain a caged, and rather sardonic, lion, in a particularly contemptible and ill-run zoo. ~ Wyndham Lewis

The rail service is important for my district. ~ Jerry Weller

Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison. ~ C.S. Lewis

There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do. ~ C.S. Lewis

That's Hendrick's 19th home run. One more and he reaches double figures. ~ Jerry Coleman

Most of the people in advertising now - mention Bill Bernbach to them, they don't know. ~ Jerry Della Femina

I would imagine after the first recording session with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and Atlantic Records I began to realize that this is going to be like this for the rest of my life and I knew that what, what they were doing was going to be successful because with each session that we would do, it would get better and better and better, the songs would become better, the, ah, the feeling of success was there and we were all in the middle of that as well. ~ Ben E. King

We teach them not to notice the different sense of the possessive pronoun .. Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by "my Teddy-bear" not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in a special relation (for that is what the Enemy will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like. ~ C.S. Lewis

Knock and it shall be opened.' But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? ~ C.S. Lewis

I've always felt that if I worked hard enough and continued to refine my craft, while staying curious about our times and our world, I just might have something to contribute. ~ Jerry Pinkney

Biblical community, then, incorporates this idea of an active partnership in the promotion of the gospel and the building up of believers. ~ Jerry Bridges

Harlem was the main chance for the east end of New York, for eastsiders, as that real estate boom that took place in the 1890s - and it was a preposterous one where people bought and sold, and everything appreciated with each sale - and eventually, of course, the house of cards would crumble. ~ David Levering Lewis

It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, 'Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. ~ Lewis Carroll

He could not feel that they were an island of life journeying through an abyss of death. He felt almost the opposite--that life was waiting outside the little iron egg-shell in which they rode, ready at any moment to break in, and that, if it killed them, it would kill them by excess of its vitality. He hoped passionately that if they were to perish they would perish by the "unbodying" of the space-ship and not by suffocation within it. To be let out, to be free, to dissolve into the ocean of eternal noon, seemed to him at certain moments a consummation even more desirable than their return to Earth. And if he had felt some such lift of the heart when first he passed through heaven on their outward journey, he felt it now tenfold, for now he was convinced that the abyss was full of life in the most literal sense, full of living creatures. ~ C.S. Lewis

Rigging is like Zen meditation. You must bend over the boat until your back is breaking, until your brain is filled with numbers and fractions of numbers, until you can accurately measure an oarlock's pitch without bothering to use the pitch meter. Only then will you see the way of eternal rigging happiness. ~ Brad Alan Lewis

Long-standing togetherness writes permanent changes into a brain's open book. In a relationship, one mind revises another; one heart changes its partner. (144) ~ Thomas Lewis

I want to sit and be less career oriented. Snowboard, dirt bike, mountain bike, surf. Just be human. To me, that's an important part of life. ~ Jason Lewis

I learned later, just as a footnote, that the World Assembly of Youth was a CIA front. ~ Stephen Lewis

I'm constantly dodging people in L.A. There are some people I don't ever wanna see again, but if you live where you grew up, you're running into people constantly. ~ Jenny Lewis

Simon had to save the world, and the rest of us get in because we have the right surname?" George asked lightly. He winked at Simon. "Hard luck on you, mate. ~ Cassandra Clare

Whether you're a mafia guy or in advertising, you always end up going back to your family. ~ Jerry Della Femina

What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet. We're not thinking about anything else. We're not thinking about any kind of power. We're not thinking about any kind of struggles. We're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That's not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps. ~ Jerry Garcia

Democracy is born in dirt, nourished by the digging up and turning over as much of it as can be brought within reach of a television camera or subpoena. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

I'm Jerry Lawler, I make fun of women because I have no self-esteem. ~ Santino Marella

You know what they say in Arkansas ... manure happens. ~ Jerry Lawler

There's only one thing money won't buy, and that is poverty. ~ Joe E. Lewis

We need to ask God daily to search our hearts for sin that we cannot or will not see. ~ Jerry Bridges

Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives. ~ C.S. Lewis

We feel properly embarrassed when we are caught doing something that makes us look inept, knuckleheaded, or inappropriate. Maybe the difference is this: we feel embarrassed because we look bad, and we feel shame because we think we are bad. When we are embarrassed, we feel socially foolish. When we are shamed, we feel morally unworthy. ~ Lewis B. Smedes

I don't want to save the world, I just want to inspire it. ~ Lindy Lewis

The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint ... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. ~ C.S. Lewis