Alan King quotes:

If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books.

My mother's sister was killed in a trolley car accident, so I was raised as one of eight with my sister and six male cousins.

We get the worrywart, the hypochondriac, the money-grubbing miser, the intractable negotiator... Some would say certain of these refer to the stereotypical, or 'stage' Jew. But objectively speaking, the only crime in humor is an unfunny joke.

Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom.

My father was a dreamer - my hero. He was a smart, tough guy from Poland, a cutter of lady's handbags, an old socialist-unionist who always considered himself a failure. His big line was: 'Don't end up like me.'

I made it, Ma - Carnegie Hall. And I didn't have to practice.

I can't stay friends with anyone who doesn't have a passion for something; and, generally speaking, artistic people, creative people carry it right into the kitchen, too. They have a zest for life; the excitement of living. All of the great eaters I've known are also men of great wit.

Comedy is a reflection. We create nothing. We set no styles, no standards. We're reflections. It's a distorted mirror in the fun house. We watch society. As society behaves, then we have the ability to make fun of it.

You only live once, except for Shirley MacLaine.

That's the great thing about New Year's, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn't such a joke, because my birthday was always around this time. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That's what the trees are all about.

I learned to cook in self-defense. My wife doesn't know what a kitchen is. In the first month of our marriage, she broiled lamb chops 26 nights in a row. Then I took over. I used to mind her not caring about food, but no more - as long as I can eat what I want.

There's a charm, there's a rhythm, there's a soul to Jewish humor. When I first saw Richard Pryor perform, I told him, 'You're doing a Jewish act.'

Smoked salmon is for dinner. Belly lox is for breakfast. Don't get that mixed up.

Larry David finds a way to make jokes about the Holocaust. It would never have occurred to me. And it was funny.

The world is full of little dictators trying to run your life.

Did you hear the one about the elderly Jew on his deathbed who sent for a priest, after declaring to his astonished relatives that 'I want to convert.' Asked why he would become a Catholic, after living all his life as a Jew, he answered: 'Better one of them should die than one of us.'

I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.

My favorite way to spend Saturday is in and out of bed, watching sports on TV and eating.

Banks have a new image. Now you have 'a friend,' your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?

One thing I've never said in my whole life is, 'Let's have dinner at a Japanese restaurant.'

If you stop and think about it, nearly all great humor is at the expense of someone or something.

As a parent, I'd - I'd be a better father.

I had a sympathetic role in 'thirtysomething,' and in two weeks I'm going to do the role again. But in the movies, I just love the heavies. It's much more fun. Villains are a ball. People have been laughing at me for 50 years, so I love to sit in the back of the theater and listen to them hate me.

My wife is a very attractive woman, and she's always worried about her diet. But she doesn't pay attention to me, and I don't pay attention to her. She's a vegetarian, and it drives me crazy.

If you keep yourself alive and current, funny is funny.

It's not easy being a father, but I've been allowed a comeback.

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

I'm only... I'm only unhappy when the reviews are bad, but give me a good review and I'm a... I'm just screaming all over the place with joy.

When I read Dickens for the first time, I thought he was Jewish, because he wrote about oppression and bigotry, all the things that my father talked about.

Marriage is nature's way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.

You know you are getting old when people tell you how good you look.

Eating takes a special talent. Some people are much better at it than others. In that way, it is like sex, and as with sex, it's more fun with someone who really likes it. I can't imagine having a lasting friendship with anyone who is not interested in food.

When I was a kid, I used to send away for those ventriloquist kits on the back of comic books.

My brother is the youngest member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. And I wouldn't let him cut my nails.

A summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!

As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex. Except for salami and eggs. Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced.

I just never saw my mother in any other room but the kitchen. There were always pots going.

Let's face it: It's difficult enough to be funny without worrying about what is going to offend whom.

When I was in the hospital they gave me apple juice every morning, even after I told them I didn't like it. I had to get even. One morning, I poured the apple juice into the specimen tube. The nurse held it up and said, 'It's a little cloudy.' I took the tube from her and said, 'Let me run it through again,' and drank it. The nurse fainted.

Right when I started in show... Milton Berle was my first idol. When I was a kid, I went to see Milton at Lowe's State, and I never laughed so much, and I said, 'That's who I want to be; that's what I want to be.'

Milton took vaudeville, which, if you look up 'vaudeville' in the dictionary, right alongside of it, it says 'Milton Berle' - and he made it just a tremendous party.

Modesty is not one of my virtues.

Museums are good things, places to look and absorb and learn.

Age, style, where you come from, where you were born, it's different every time, which, to me, is refreshing because it says that there isn't any one thing, one formula or kind of character that makes a great comedian. Everybody has had a different approach.

Everything my mother made had to cook for 80 hours, and when she made matzoh balls she didn't know fluffy. Everything sank.

When I get up in the morning, I have to decide what I'm going to have for dinner or I can't get through the day.

Comedy is an amazing calling. Once you get that first laugh, it's hard to turn away. Then, of course, you're hooked and you have to learn how to survive in the business.

The other day my house caught fire. My lawyer said, "Shouldn't be a problem. What kind of coverage do you have?" I said, "Fire and theft." The lawyer frowned. "Uh oh. Wrong kind. Should be fire OR theft."

My father helped me leave. He said, 'It's all out there, it's not here.'

I was a high school throw-out.

I always plan dinner first thing in the morning. That's the only way I can get through the day, having a specific meal to look forward to at night.

You do live longer with bran, but you spend the last fifteen years on the toilet.

There's nobody to believe in anymore, nobody to trust.

And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.

I won't eat in a place that has suits of armor.

My mother kept the house clean and we ate good. I didn't know we were poor until I started giving interviews.

My son says I never tell stories about anyone who's living.

The ability to absorb a book and make someone else's words and story your own was exactly was I was doing on stage.