Bob Newhart Quotes

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Bob Newhart

Profession : Comedian

Birth : September 5, 1929

When I started out in 1960, I thought it might possibly last a couple of years. I never expected it to last 42. I take great satisfaction in that longevity.

Bob Newhart

I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.

Bob Newhart

I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.

Bob Newhart

I'm very open to the up-and-comers.

Bob Newhart

I think the thing about it is when you grow up in Chicago there's such a thing as putting on airs, you know? And you just learn not to put on airs. Don't act like, 'Oh boy, I'm somebody.' They'll slap you down.

Bob Newhart

I wasn't the class clown. I wasn't that obvious. There would be a circle of guys, and they're watching the class clown. And I'm standing in the back, and I turn to the guy next to me and I say something funny to him, and he starts to laugh. And the guy next to him says, 'What did he say?'

Bob Newhart

You do a clean show and it's over and the audience have enjoyed themselves and you've enjoyed yourself, and you haven't had to resort to shock.

Bob Newhart

All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.

Bob Newhart

Dick Martin, if you put a gun to his forehead, he couldn't tell you a joke.

Bob Newhart

Mark Twain gave us an insight into the life on the Mississippi at the turn of the century.

Bob Newhart

I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?'

Bob Newhart

The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I'm not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.

Bob Newhart

I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.

Bob Newhart

With the advent of cell phones, especially with the very small microphone that attach to the cell phone itself, it's getting harder and harder I find, to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone.

Bob Newhart

When I started, I was doing all the good comedians I'd ever seen. Then I developed my own voice. My routines are my natural way of looking at the world.

Bob Newhart

Comedians are never really on vacation because you're always at attention... that antenna is always out there.

Bob Newhart

I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That's the only way you learn how to do it.

Bob Newhart

Well, my career choice made a difference because I never would have met my wife, Jenny. I met her through comedian Buddy Hackett. He set us up on a blind date and then we got married.

Bob Newhart

It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don't work that way. There was a temptation in the early '70s to reconsider. I decided against it.

Bob Newhart

Funny is funny is funny.

Bob Newhart