Jerry Lewis Quotes

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Jerry Lewis

Profession : Comedian

Birth : March 16, 1926

I need the applause.

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

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

Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.

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

Jerry Lewis

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 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

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

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

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

This is the pain pacemaker. I've got a battery under my skin. From that battery are two electrodes that go into the spine where they cut bone away to accommodate it. Now I put on the power here. If I have the pain, the stimulator starts. It's tingling, like when your foot falls asleep, you know?

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 have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.

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

I expect people that come to the studio to work to come with the same energy I come with. If I see less than that, I get very strong about, if you want to do this, come with a sense of pride, come with eagerness and anxiety.

Jerry Lewis

My family was as absolute as the work.Family was first always.

Jerry Lewis

When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude; you have to bring a different kind of concentration.

Jerry Lewis

When I'm working, I stay in ICU in any hospital that will get me a bed.

Jerry Lewis

I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have, and I never will.

Jerry Lewis