Bob Newhart Quotations | Page 2

When I was off TV, people would ask me to please come back, which I think was their way of saying, 'There's nothing out there for us.'

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.

Chuck Lorre and I had been talking about doing one of his shows for a while. I said I'd like to do 'The Big Bang Theory,' because I think it's the best written, most intelligent show on television.

I found the most difficult thing when you became successful - when I had the record album, it won Album of the Year - that you were cut off from the source of your material. Your material was everyday people, and you were kind of cut off from that, and you had to work at it.

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.

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.

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.

Richard Pryor introduced me to the world of the inner city, and the urban world, and did it hysterically. My favorite comedian, even though we work 180 degrees differently, but funny is funny is funny.

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.

The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit.

I love portraying the totally indifferent person.

Well, if you’re a native Chicagoan, you know how dumb he [Dr. Robert Hartley] is. He gets on the Ravenswood El, he goes past his stop on Sheridan Road, he gets off in Evanston, where the El is on the ground, and then he walks back 55 blocks to his apartment. Now, would you want to have that man as a psychologist? A man who misses his stop every day?

Because of the spin-meisters and the focus groups and the way politics is run now. It's run by polls and focus groups. So it's even more true today, I think, than it was some 40 years ago.

The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.

I've been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.

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.

I don't have a stack of scripts.

I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn't put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you're hiding behind a character.

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

I've been a very lucky actor.

I gave up accounting. I went in for about six months writing ad copy. I was fired from that, and then another guy and I did a kind of poor man's Bob and Ray kind of syndicated radio show. Then I decided to stick it out and see what happened. I'd give it a year, a year became two years, and then two years became three years, and then along came the record album.

I kind of do it in my head, then I'll try pieces of it on stage and if it looks promising, I'll put it together.

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.

Television series are like the stock market. There's room for bears and bulls but no room for pigs.

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.

I can't remember the last live-action, non-animated Christmas movie.

I didn't need the elf outfit to play an elf; I could just play an elf.

You never know when you'll come upon something and it's going to be fodder for new material.

The reason I'm a psychologist is based in part on my telephone routines. Much of my humor comes out of reaction to what other people are saying. A psychologist is a man who listens, who is sympathetic.

I feel more comfortable in comedy.

I think everyone probably starts out sounding like someone else, but gradually you develop your own sound.

I've done more than I thought I was ever going to do. I've had a very long and very satisfying career.

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.

I couldn't play off people that I don't personally like.

One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.

The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can't destroy it.

There's gratification in making somebody laugh. It's a wonderful sound. I find myself, to this day, doing it, wanting to make people laugh.

As an actor, you generally want to see the other actor's face.

Don't ever have two dogs. That way you won't know which one to blame.

The best advice I could give someone trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.

Continuing to do stand-up is always a challenge because the audiences and the environments in which you work very often differ.

I don't have a show anymore. I don't have a check coming in every week. This is important to me, I got to score a million tonight or it could all be over.

Women are more emotional. They do get flustered. Which is not to say that men are better than they. It's simply the way it is.

You should have a value system. You can win if you stick with your value system.

Cell phones have gotten so small, you can't tell who's a cell phone user and who's a schizophrenic.

A collison is what happens when two motorists go after the same pedestrian.

There's a lot of cynicism. Let's really enjoy Christmas, with all that's going on in the world.

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.

Funny is funny is funny.

I think there are still words you can't use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.

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.

I was never a Certified Public Accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. It would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.

I wasn't much good. When I went into the line on a fake - I would holler 'I don't have it!'

I don't want to find the secret. I'm afraid all the joy will go out of it if I find the secret.

I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.

But I really believe that if you have the ability, there is an obligation to make people laugh

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.

I'm one of those passengers who arrives at the airport five or six hours early so I can throw back a few drinks and muster up the courage to board the plane. Apparently I'm not alone because I've never been in an empty airport bar. I don't care what time you get there. Even at 8:00 a.m. you have to fight your way to the bar. At that hour, everyone drinks Bloody Marys so no one can tell it's booze- at least until they fall off their chair.

I still feel thirty, except when I try to run.

I wouldn't want that man as my psychologist.

The show went through several stages before it went on the air,

People stayed home on Saturdays to watch CBS, ... I don't know why or how the networks abandoned Saturday nights. Maybe cable has had something to do with that. I don't know, but I do know that at one time Saturdays were big for the networks.

The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Second Season

That idea came from my wife (Virginia), ... You know, 'Dallas' had done the thing about one season being nothing more than a dream. We managed to keep it a secret until we actually shot the show. You should have heard the audience when they saw me and Suzanne in bed.

That meant I could go home at night, ... Doing stand-up comedy, you're on the road an awful lot.

But it comes off as innocence, which carries through the picture.

This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl.

The group was really supposed to be a one-shot deal, ... But it was obvious by the audience's reaction that they loved the group. That convinced us to bring them back.