Top 100 Newhart Quotes
#1. 'Newhart' ran the longest, and it was great to have a regular role, but I run into a lot of film fans, and they ask me about 'Blade Runner.' I was grateful to be a part of that.
William Sanderson
#2. I'd like to make a motion that we face reality. - BOB NEWHART, FROM THE BOB NEWHART SHOW
Melody Beattie
#3. I left 'The Bob Newhart Show,' which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.
Bob Newhart
#4. Growing up, I loved Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart. They are a big reason I'm a storyteller because they are two of the best.
Henry Cho
#5. I'm closer to Bob Newhart than Rodney Dangerfield.
Jim Gaffigan
#6. I am a firm believer in the notion that what we think upon grows and, by constantly bombarding our lives with thoughts of what's missing, we are simply inviting more of that lack into our existence. In the now famous words of Bob Newhart - "Stop It!".
Taite Adams
#7. I'm going old school. Adult comedy but you can have your kids in the room. Kind of Andy Griffith meets Bill Cosby meets Bob Newhart. Also my character isn't an idiot as all the rest of the sitcoms recently have the dad character like Homer Simpson.
Henry Cho
#8. The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.
Ellen DeGeneres
#9. Bob Newhart, who is my best friend, is one of the guys I adore.
Don Rickles
#10. I come from a time when people like Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby told stories that were devastatingly funny without being off-color.
Bill Engvall
#11. I probably make more money in a year on 'Newhart' than 70 percent of your working top-name stars. Some weeks I just have six lines, but it doesn't bother me.
Peter Scolari
#12. 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
#13. About a year after 'Bosom Buddies,' I was suddenly a regular on 'Newhart,' and I was there almost seven years. And then, somewhere in the mid-1990s, I ended up doing a TV series version of 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.'
Peter Scolari
#14. I've always said people say on a dramatic show, 'I was crying. It was so emotional when he went and grabbed that little girl from a burning building and handed her over to her mother.' In comedy, the best thing you can say is, 'I think it's funny.'
Bob Newhart
#15. There was a sea of change in comedy in the late 1950s and '60s. We were dealing with vignettes as opposed to jokes. We were more socially aware.
Bob Newhart
#16. Stammering is different than stuttering. Stutterers have trouble with the letters, while stammerers trip over entire parts of a sentence. We stammerers generally think of ourselves as very bright.
Bob Newhart
#17. I just made the decision that I was going to try comedy, and if didn't work, then I knew it didn't work. Then I would go back and do whatever. But at least I wouldn't torture myself the rest of my life, wondering whatever would have happened.
Bob Newhart
#18. I think there's a little confusion between humor and 'gross' passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable, because they aren't the same thing.
Bob Newhart
#19. I think everyone probably starts out sounding like someone else, but gradually you develop your own sound.
Bob Newhart
#20. Comedians are innately programmed to pick up oddities like mispronounced words, upside-down books on a shelf, and generally undetectable mistakes in everyday life.
Bob Newhart
#21. I don't think of myself as an American Master. I've just been making a living.
Bob Newhart
#22. More and more, as I get older, people come up to me and say, 'Thank you for all the laughter.' And my standard answer is, 'It was my pleasure.' But that's the truth.
Bob Newhart
#23. I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable.
Bob Newhart
#24. Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
Bob Newhart
#25. What you see on stage is pretty much the way I am ... a dry sense of humor.
Bob Newhart
#26. I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?'
Bob Newhart
#27. I would say I came from upper middle class family.
Bob Newhart
#29. It's kind of hard coming from 'Saturday Night Live,' which is a sketch-driven show, to a movie.
Bob Newhart
#30. I have an aversion to laugh tracks - the moment I hear a laugh track, I go to another channel.
Bob Newhart
#31. I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.
Bob Newhart
#32. The acting is better when you know your material is being judged.
Bob Newhart
#33. When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'
Bob Newhart
#34. Dick Martin, if you put a gun to his forehead, he couldn't tell you a joke.
Bob Newhart
#35. Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.
Bob Newhart
#36. I am one of the great wasters of time. I have made it an art form. I can get up at 8 o'clock in the morning, be out of the house by 8:30 and back by 5 P.M., and I'll be going all day long and accomplish absolutely nothing. It's an amazing talent.
Bob Newhart
#37. One of the first things that you learn as a stand-up is, you're the boss. It's your stage, and don't screw with me because I'll make you look bad, which I had to do, because you wind up with drunks and loud people.
Bob Newhart
#38. I don't think too much about age. Maybe if you're hurting, aching and arthritic, then you think about it a lot. But I don't.
Bob Newhart
#39. 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
#40. Marriage and fatherhood heighten the disillusion that we all think we are born handy. We confidently believe that we can fix things around the house, as if it's part of the collective brain that was further enhanced by eighth-grade shop class.
Bob Newhart
#41. You may not think I'm a sex symbol, but I became a father at the age of 48. Now young people think of me as a mini-folk hero because it's difficult for them to believe a man of my age is sexually active.
Bob Newhart
#42. I loved 'Everybody Loves Raymond' because I like Ray and I thought it was beautifully cast, I thought it was great writing. I thought Patricia Heaton was wonderful.
Bob Newhart
#43. The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you're just breaking in and that's working, and that's - you're one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience there.
Bob Newhart
#44. I know Chuck Lorre personally, and am familiar with his work going back to 'Roseanne' and 'Cybil.'
Bob Newhart
#46. Humor is so important to the American scene throughout history.
Bob Newhart
#47. A guy walks into a psychologist's convention with a banana in his pocket.When asked about the significance of this he says;well,they were all out of grapes.
Bob Newhart
#48. I've been told to speed up my delivery when I perform. But if I lose the stammer, I'm just another slightly amusing accountant.
Bob Newhart
#49. In today's world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I'm not sure that isn't true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don't know what that would have done to my psyche.
Bob Newhart
#50. Every new routine I have ever written and performed probably occurred extemporaneously. Then after you have fleshed it out and tried it out in front of a number of audiences and it works, you put it down on paper.
Bob Newhart
#51. 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
#52. I don't want to find the secret. I'm afraid all the joy will go out of it if I find the secret.
Bob Newhart
#53. There are some actresses that can't do comedy; it's too heavy-handed.
Bob Newhart
#54. Don't live in the past. There's no point. You can't change anything. What a waste of time.
Bob Newhart
#55. I didn't know I was cool, but I was very flattered that some of the younger comedy writers came up to talk to me at the Emmys. I found that gratifying.
Bob Newhart
#56. I always stayed away from political commentary. First of all, I didn't feel entitled. What I may feel about a candidate, I'm a comedian. I mean, if people like my comedy, that doesn't mean they should vote for the person I like. That's why I always kind of stayed away from endorsements.
Bob Newhart
#57. I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.
Bob Newhart
#58. It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.
Bob Newhart
#59. There are a lot of questions I keep asking myself about why I do comedy. I guess I laugh to keep from crying. And I guess if you ever get me crying, I might not stop. This is the way I look at tragedy or else I'll cry.
Bob Newhart
#60. I don't know how to do a show not in front of a live audience.
Bob Newhart
#61. I'm glad you can't talk on your cells while the plane is in the air. That would drive me crazy.
Bob Newhart
#62. This stammer got me a home in Beverly Hills, and I'm not about to screw with it now.
Bob Newhart
#63. I have to warn you, I'm not just some sitcom guy. I'm now an author.
Bob Newhart
#64. You should have a value system. You can win if you stick with your value system.
Bob Newhart
#65. I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that.
Bob Newhart
#66. I love portraying the totally indifferent person.
Bob Newhart
#67. A lot of money is spent trying to keep people alive who don't necessarily want to be alive.
Bob Newhart
#68. Sometimes you forget you're famous. You wonder, 'Why is that person staring at me?'
Bob Newhart
#69. I couldn't play off people that I don't personally like.
Bob Newhart
#70. I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.
Bob Newhart
#71. I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though you're poking fun at someone or something, there's still an affection for it.
Bob Newhart
#73. I have no intention of retiring; I can't imagine not doing stand-up. That's where I started and where I'll be.
Bob Newhart
#74. 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
#75. The best advice I was probably given and the best advice I could give someone who is trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.
Bob Newhart
#76. 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
#77. Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.
Bob Newhart
#78. You shouldn't get too close to the truth, because then maybe you stop being funny.
Bob Newhart
#79. I've been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.
Bob Newhart
#80. I always hated when the studios just kind of said that anybody can act. You look at people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda - and I'm just talking about the male actors - there aren't a lot who can act. It's a very special talent, and I wish it were recognized as a very special talent.
Bob Newhart
#81. I was never a Certified Public Accountant ... I just had a degree in accounting. The reason I was never a Certified Public Accountant was because it would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.
Bob Newhart
#82. I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.
Bob Newhart
#83. There is an edginess in my work that people don't always recognize.
Bob Newhart
#84. I certainly don't delude myself that there aren't certainly more important things to do in life than make people laugh, but I can't imagine anything that would bring me more joy.
Bob Newhart
#85. 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
#86. I was not influenced by Jack Benny, and people have remarked on my timing and Jack's timing, but I don't think you can teach timing. It's something you hear in your head.
Bob Newhart
#87. People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.
Bob Newhart
#88. Don't ever have two dogs. That way you won't know which one to blame.
Bob Newhart
#89. I didn't need the elf outfit to play an elf; I could just play an elf.
Bob Newhart
#90. One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.
Bob Newhart
#91. 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' was the best television, the best cast, the best-written television show ever.
Bob Newhart
#92. For a comedian, there is nothing better than watching another great comedian.
Bob Newhart
#93. I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That's the only way you learn how to do it.
Bob Newhart
#94. Don't be silly and don't waste your time.
Bob Newhart
#95. 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
#96. When you're going for a joke, you're stuck out there if it doesn't work. There's nowhere to go. You've done the drum role and the cymbal clash and you're out on the end of the plank.
Bob Newhart
#97. Doormen are kind of invisible, people don't know their names. They just say, Thank you, or Good morning. I'd never thought about doormen before. They're a vanishing breed. More electronic doors are being introduced.
Bob Newhart
#98. Well I was much too practical to presume to have a career in comedy.
Bob Newhart
#99. 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
#100. The first time I heard Richard Pryor, I knew he would be a major force in the world of comedy.
Bob Newhart
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