Don Rickles Quotes

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Don Rickles

Profession : Comedian

Birth : May 8, 1926

Everything I've performed has been from my own head.

Don Rickles

After over 50 years of headlining, I've been received very beautifully. But I always say, when you're onstage, you can't please everybody. I'm sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that's OK.

Don Rickles

I busted my bird for 60 years in the business, but my grandkids only know me as Mr. Potato Head.

Don Rickles

I don't practice or write stuff down - everything I do onstage was just made up before I went on.

Don Rickles

Honestly, I didn't realize it - all of a sudden, I was 90. The years skipped by quickly. When it happened, I said, 'Where did the time go?'

Don Rickles

I don't have regrets. I've never sat here and thought, 'Gee, if only I'd done 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' on Broadway, I would have been happier.'

Don Rickles

The thing I love about Vegas is that it's a melting pot. It's like working Ellis Island.

Don Rickles

Once in a while, when I'm alone, I think about my age. I think, 'How many more years do I have on this earth?' But I can't really conceive of dying.

Don Rickles

Somehow, in my head, I don't think I'll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it'll never come to me. It's crazy, but there it is.

Don Rickles

I was always the guy who made jokes and ribbed people at parties. After I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts I got sidetracked into clubs and started doing comedy.

Don Rickles

I was a big shot in high school - big into social events and at the dramatic society - and I always had trouble in school. Not because I was a dummy, but I was always busy being the Jackson Heights clown.

Don Rickles

I used to work over a bar. That was - there was no stage. I stood over a tiny bar. Louis Prima, rest his soul, he worked there. I was the guy that filled in when he was off the stage.

Don Rickles

I exaggerate all our selves, our beings. I make fun of everything: of our life and what we are. But I don't tell jokes, really. I just exaggerate life, and it comes out funny.

Don Rickles

The girls, like, in we'll say Hooters, have less clothing than the girls I worked with in those days. We thought it was wild when they just wore little bells and so forth. But today, in restaurants, some of the waitresses almost work in the nude, you know, to get business.

Don Rickles

We were Orthodox Jews, but we really didn't deserve it. I mean, bacon - my father said, 'Don't put bacon in the house,' but we had bacon. We didn't keep kosher. And we observed which today would be Conservative Jews. But in those days, we belonged to an Orthodox temple. So we made out we were Orthodox Jews, but we really weren't.

Don Rickles

Most people think the character I do onstage is the way I am offstage, but I'm just a regular guy who spends time with his family and who turns on the television and watches a lot of sports.

Don Rickles

What keeps me going is that young people still want to see me.

Don Rickles

When I was a younger guy doing comedy, it was a big struggle. Promoters canceled me out of clubs left and right when I called somebody a dummy or a yo-yo. Then they realized I was different.

Don Rickles

Girls were scared of me because I can be loud. Barbara, my wife of 51 years, is very low-key. She was my picture agent's secretary.

Don Rickles

At 90, I'm still working a couple of dates a month. My mind is very sharp on the stage, so why not? This may sound corny, but I do it because people - young and old - still come to see me, and they're very enthusiastic about my work. They treat me like the Godfather.

Don Rickles