Top 73 Billy Crystal Quotes
#1. We all have a different image of what old is, and if you were exposed to senior citizens at a young age, as I was, it can color your soul with terror.
Billy Crystal
#2. You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back.
Billy Crystal
#4. Despite what The Wall Street Journal says, our awards are the best-kept secret in America, with the possible exception of what George W. Bush did in the '70s.
Billy Crystal
#5. The Passion of the Christ opened up on Ash Wednesday, had a Good Friday.
Billy Crystal
#6. Do something special on your birthday. Whatever you do, celebrate the fact that you're here, and that people love you and you love them. We only do this once.
Billy Crystal
#7. Nothing can take the sting out of the world's economic problems like watching millionaires present each other with golden statues.
Billy Crystal
#8. I think I've far exceeded what I ever thought I could possibly do. I'm almost shocked that I'm still around after all of these years ... and always grateful that I get another turn to do something.
Billy Crystal
#9. From the first time I saw Sid Caesar be funny I knew that's what I had to do.
Billy Crystal
#10. My grandparents invented joylessness. They were not fun. I've already had more fun with my grandchildren than my grandparents ever had with me.
Billy Crystal
#11. When I've gotten criticism, it's that it's too long, too soft, didn't hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, What's he doing hitting the government?
Billy Crystal
#12. When you realize you want to invest the rest of your lifestyle with somebody, you want the rest of your life to commence as quickly as achievable.
Billy Crystal
#13. What's so fascinating and frustrating and great about life is that you're constantly starting over, all the time, and I love that.
Billy Crystal
#15. My dad, Jack, had a great sense of humour and had a strong impact on me and my humour.
Billy Crystal
#16. Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.
Billy Crystal
#17. I quit drinking. That was a big problem for a lot of years. Then after that, I just started feeling grateful again.
Billy Crystal
#18. There's only, I think, in life, three things that I do pretty well: Performing, I still can field ground balls, and I make nice kids.
Billy Crystal
#19. Consider the rose ... The rose is the sweetest smelling flower of all, and it's the most beautiful because it's the most simple, right? But sometimes, you got to clip the rose. You got to cut the rose back, so something sweeter smelling and stronger, and even more beautiful, will grow in its place
Billy Crystal
#20. I was a film-directing major at NYU. I'm still not sure why I became a directing major, when I was really an actor and a comedian, but there was something that drew me to doing that.
Billy Crystal
#21. I always was a performer, from the time I was little. It was always a natural place for me to be.
Billy Crystal
#22. At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are.
Billy Crystal
#23. That's the thing about jazz: it's free flowing, it comes from your soul.
Billy Crystal
#24. Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I'd always go off book and start improvising.
Billy Crystal
#25. But I had learned over the years that if you're not happy doing what you're doing, then you shouldn't be doing it.
Billy Crystal
#26. The inspiration was this great group of 40 or 50 relatives, sometimes for Thanksgiving or Passover or something and my brothers would just go up and make them laugh.
Billy Crystal
#27. Great news! Hosting Oscars counts five hours toward my community service!
Billy Crystal
#28. I don't like heights. This is why I stopped growing at fifth grade.
Billy Crystal
#29. It's money. I remember it from when I was single
Billy Crystal
#30. Nothing can take the sting off the world's economic problems like watching millionaires present each other golden statues.
Billy Crystal
#31. I didn't rebel as a child. I missed that angry teenager thing.
Billy Crystal
#32. [I did impressions] of relatives because I heard so many different sounds. My dad was in the music business and of course my uncle was a giant [music producer], but my dad in particular had the house filled with these Dixieland jazz stars.
Billy Crystal
#33. Insomnia, from the Greek word meaning I can't fucking sleep!
Billy Crystal
#34. I'm comfortable being old ... being black ... being Jewish.
Billy Crystal
#35. When comedy is good, it's jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It's all melody to me.
Billy Crystal
#36. Humans love sex, we need sex, it's how we connect, it reminds us we're alive, it's the third most basic human need, after food and good movie popcorn.
Billy Crystal
#37. I'm a baby. I sleep like a baby - I'm up every two hours. And I think a lot. I worry a lot. I have great nights of no sleep where ideas come.
Billy Crystal
#38. In my standup work, I always do these characters, older people who are just off to the side. It's easier to write a story about the guy who made it to the top, but the middle is so much more interesting, so much more murky.
Billy Crystal
#39. In high school, I was the class comedian as opposed to the class clown. The difference is the class clown is the guy who drops his pants at the football game, the class comedian is the guy who talked him into it.
Billy Crystal
#42. A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it's really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it's great.
Billy Crystal
#43. You really have to have some muscle to be on the stage in front of the world.
Billy Crystal
#44. By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.
Billy Crystal
#46. I used to limp around my neighborhood imitating him. I did my Bar Mitzvah with an Oklahoma drawl.
Billy Crystal
#47. As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
Billy Crystal
#48. Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.
Billy Crystal
#49. I was introducing [director and producer] Hal Roach - Mr. Roach was 100 years old, he was one of the fathers of early days in films, he put Laurel with Hardy, he created the Our Gang kids, and all these silent movies he did - he was a giant.
Billy Crystal
#50. Women need a reason for having sex, men just need a place
Billy Crystal
#51. My granddaughter's birth has made me want to create things she will love.
Billy Crystal
#52. Dad had a music store, and he'd often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy.
Billy Crystal
#53. I think when I feel I'm at my best is when I'm on stage, and it's my version of jazz because it's just riffing or something.
Billy Crystal
#54. Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America's biggest export is now the Oscar.
Billy Crystal
#56. I'd like to think there is a Heaven, and it starts from the happiest day in your life.
Billy Crystal
#58. To be good, you need to believe in what you're doing.
Billy Crystal
#59. I had a dream that Connie Chung is doing a newscast about my death and they show a clip from Soap.
Billy Crystal
#60. Westboro Baptist Church: STOP. Stop protesting the funerals of our soldiers who died in action because you are anti-gay. When one of you dies, I'm going to show up with a couple of gay veterans and we're going to do a musical at your funeral.
Billy Crystal
#61. [My mother] is the greatest hero I'll ever know because she kept us all together, she made sure we all graduated college. She always believed in us no matter what we do. My older brother Joel became an art teacher; my brother Rip ultimately became a television producer and singer and actor himself.
Billy Crystal
#62. The kind of people who spoke mostly Yiddish, which is a combination of German and phlegm. This is a language of coughing and spitting; until I was eleven, I wore a raincoat.
Billy Crystal
#63. I never worry that I'll die in my sleep, because I'm never asleep!
Billy Crystal
#64. Thurmond - same thing. Kennedy, Eisenhower, Clinton ... all men of power, and the power went right to their pants. Even FDR fooled around. This
Billy Crystal
#66. I'm going to be your grandpa! / I have the biggest smile. / I've been waiting to meet you for such a long, long while.
Billy Crystal
#67. For almost 40 years, he was the brightest star in the comedy galaxy ... The beautiful light will continue to shine on us forever and the glow will be so bright, it'll warm your heart, it'll make your eyes glisten, and you'll think to yourselves, Robin Williams, what a concept.
Billy Crystal
#68. My mind is always going. I'm always thinking what I need to do, what I haven't done, what I did do, what I didn't do as well as I could - I'm relentless that way with myself.
Billy Crystal
#69. If you do something for the first time, you will always remember it. If your Dad has something to do with it, you write about it.
Billy Crystal
#70. Kids need a happy household. They need to be loved and supported in their dreams. And I don't think you can make your kids' dreams your own. They need you to support them in their dreams.
Billy Crystal
#71. I'm going to go on just living and laughing and loving.
Billy Crystal
#72. Good news, they found Nemo! The bad news is, they found him in one of Wolfgang Puck's puff pastries.
Billy Crystal
#73. It's more important to look good than to feel good.
Billy Crystal on Saturday Night Live
Billy Crystal
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