Gilbert Gottfried Quotations

I was Jewish, through and through, although in our house that didn't mean a whole lot. We never went to synagogue. I never had a Bar Mitzvah. We didn't keep kosher or observe the Sabbath. In fact, I'm not so sure I would have known what the Sabbath looked like if it passed me on the street, so how could I observe it?

I always wish the hotels were like they are in movies and TV shows, where if you're in Paris, right outside your window is the Eiffel Tower. In Egypt, the pyramids are right there. In the movies, every hotel has a monument right outside your window. My hotel rooms overlook the garbage dumpster in the back alley.

My family originally lived in Brooklyn. Our first apartment was a little place above my father and uncle's hardware store in Coney Island. Now, don't get the impression that we were surrounded by merry-go-rounds, roller coasters and Ferris wheels. Nope, this was a little side street.

A landlord is showing a couple around an apartment. The husband looks up and says, 'Wait a minute. This apartment doesn't have a ceiling.' The landlord answers, 'That's OK. The people upstairs don't walk around that much.'

I have always felt comedy and tragedy are roommates. If you look up comedy and tragedy, you will find a very old picture of two masks. One mask is tragedy. It looks like its crying. The other mask is comedy. It looks like its laughing. Nowadays, we would say, How tasteless and insensitive. A comedy mask is laughing at a tragedy mask.

With me, traveling for work is arriving at the airport, checking into the hotel, leaving the hotel the next morning at 4 or 5 to do something like 'The Jimmy and Jackie Captain Crazy Morning Zoo,' doing a bunch of those in a row, then going back to the hotel, and then finally going to the club.

I wanted to be a brain surgeon, but I had a bad habit of dropping things.

If someone else is paying for it, food just tastes a lot better.

I can't even find someone for a platonic relationship, much less the kind where someone wants to see me naked.

I always try to avoid anything that has to do with my life.

No, generally I think influence is used as a nice word for plagiarism.

You never know what people will choose to be offended by.

I've never understood people who say they're not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he's not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean?

I predict one of these two teams will win the Super Bowl.

There are certain things I don't want to joke about. If it's about somebody else, it's fine. If it's about me, I think it's totally insensitive!

I just don't accept midgets as human beings. There's only so much political correctness I can accept.

I remember being at the premiere of 'Beverly Hills Cop II' and the tremendous reaction from the crowd outside, then going to a party at a hotel afterwards where the speakers were blasting 'Shakedown,' a song from the movie. That felt like a show biz moment to me.

Well, I'm eventually gonna take the Daryl Hannah parts.

With the Internet, if you erase something it just means you have to spend another half-minute to find it.

I found out about Jonathan Winters' death a day after it happened. That seems wrong. A talent like his should be more revered. The world knew about Kim Kardashian's divorce before she did.

I'm a very anti-vacation person. Because I'm always getting on planes for work, to me, a vacation is when I don't have to get on a plane.

Any misfortune that happens to another person is funny. If it happens to someone else and not me, it's very funny.

I understand being less sexy than Osama bin Laden, but not less sexy than Carrot Top. That, I find offensive.

Reality TV has totally destroyed soap operas. They're gone. They used to be the biggest thing in the world - they're gone.

The pressure to being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever.

I changed the face of comedy. I used to be funny.

I guess if they ever do a remake of 'Sophie's Choice,' I could play the Meryl Streep part. I've got to work on my Polish accent. Maybe I'll be the definitive King Lear one day. You know, if they ever feel that King Lear should be more Jewy.

I'm one of those people, in any country I'm in, if somebody could just put me in a car or a bus, I'll look out the window and say, 'OK, there's the Tower of London, there's Buckingham Palace, there's Big Ben,' and if it all takes about five minutes, perfect. I've seen all of it and I can go home.

I used to go to the Improvisation Comedy Club every night in Times Square. How I didn't get killed in that area either means that 1) God is watching over me or 2) I am so insignificant to God that he didn't bother having me killed.

A lot of people who claim they're political comedians are just comedians who have opinions. But they stop being funny the minute they give their opinions.

Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing.

If I could cause world peace by taking someone out to lunch, I'd go, 'Well, war isn't that terrible.'

If the police ever try to pick me up, Michael Jackson told me I can hide out at his house.

The joy of the roasts is to watch people get hurt and offended, and then have to laugh to pretend they're a good sport.

I'd make Jack Benny look like a philanthropist.

When you watch Robin Williams, you can see a lot of Jonathan Winters. Robin is the first one to admit that; he worshiped Jonathan Winters.

I would show up at a party for Al Qaeda if you said there's going to be a dinner.

I'd like to have a kid, but I'd probably get a Frank Sinatra Jr. instead of a Gilbert Gottfried Jr. I'd totally screw up like that.

I'm one of those people that picks up the remote control and just keep hitting constantly, even if I like the show I'm watching.

I'm used to explaining to people why my jokes were funny.

If a comedian tells a joke that you find funny, you laugh. If he tells a joke you do not find funny, dont laugh. Or you could possibly go as far as groaning or rolling your eyes. Then you wait for his next joke; if thats funny, then you laugh. If its not, you dont laugh - or at very worst, you can leave quietly.

Back when Jerry Seinfeld was just another comedian hanging around the clubs, I'd imitate him to amuse myself and the other comics. The club owners would say, 'What are you doing that for? Nobody knows him.'

I'm terrible when I have to fill up free time. My days, if I'm not working, I wake up and figure out a way to kill time until it's time to go to sleep.

My Bubbie lived to 104, which is probably a little too old to consider a ripe old age, because she had already started to turn. I still say she died young.

One thing I can take credit for, along with the rest of show business, is when the red ribbons were out, we cured AIDS. Any advancements that came towards fighting AIDS were not done by scientists or doctors - it was people with little ribbons on their lapels.

I was the class podiatrist. I never made it to class clown. I wasn't funny enough. I would examine feet and prescribe and ointment. It was a sad childhood.

I think a lot of people have too much time on their hands.

I think of Alan Thicke as Perry Como without the excitement.

I've never been one of those who wanted to fill my calendar up 90 percent of the time.

Well, I play Jews and parrots. Parrots are how I've branched out.

In real life I'm a tall, blond Christian.

I don't know if I change my act from century to century. Sometimes I'm onstage doing imitations and references to people who have been dead for 50 years.

People have many theories about comedy, but being just plain funny is the one most important thing.

There definitely is exposure in reality shows, but the exposure will basically get you more reality shows.

Unfortunately, I've never been mistaken as Johnny Depp.

Comedy historians take note: this Gottfried character doesn't have the best eye for detail - and, for a Jew, he doesn't have the best eye for retail, either.

The 'Phoenix Sun' did a list of the unsexiest men in the world, and I made it to number one. I beat out Bin Laden. He's a terrorist, hasn't bathed in months. I beat him out. To me it was a great honor.

If you're a lead actor, people are just waiting to say 'you're too old' or 'you're too unhip.' If you're a supporting actor, you can just work forever.

There are times when I've had ideas walking down the street that I thought were great, and the minute I got onstage, I would think of them and go, 'Wow, that would never work,' even before I did it in front of the audience.

Every time I give a straight answer and read it in a magazine, I say, 'Ouch.' One day I'd like to talk to a psychoanalyst about why celebrities reveal so much of themselves in interviews.

I always feel that most political jokes, if you're going to do them, you have to do them within the next five minutes, or else they're outdated. By the time you've got it to the point that it's strong, it would be 12 years old.

I find Washington audiences are basically the same as every other audience; they watch me and go, 'Who's idea was it to go see him? And is it too late to ask for my money back?'

With (Katrina), it's almost like the sequel that doesn't live up to the original. It's certainly a shocking event and a tragedy, but somehow as a big event it doesn't seem to carry as much weight with the public as 9/11 did.

I've always said my career is somewhere between children's programming and hard-core porn.

Not paying the comics a dime -- that's Penn's greatest magic trick,

I host these bad movies late at night.

If someone says that I'm the best at anything, I always just agree with them. I'm certainly not gonna argue.

You can say "ass," but you can't say "asshole." That's why I always cringe when a character in a TV show refers to someone as an "ass." Unless you're British, calling someone an ass really doesn't work. But those are the rules of television. You can be a dirtbag, but not a scumbag.

If they'd wanted a nice parrot, they wouldn't have asked for me.

I found out about Jonathan Winters death a day after it happened. That seems wrong. A talent like his should be more revered. The world knew about Kim Kardashians divorce before she did.

R2D2 has gotten more work since “Star Wars” than Carrie Fisher

What do Japanese Jews love to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.

Every time something pops in my head, I think twice about it and I do it anyway.

I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'They'll be another one floating by any minute now.'

Off-camera, I sound like Perry Como.

Nothing can help my comedy.

I'm eventually gonna take the Daryl Hannah parts.

One pleasant surprise was when I interviewed Butch Patrick. I was expecting this bitter old drunk, and instead he had a total sense of humor about his career and his drinking and drug problem.

I personally think Miles Davis is a lot funnier than me. And he's working more.

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.

I've done a lot of Fox shows since then - Married with Children, Living Single and a whole bunch of other Fox things.

You know what my theory is? Accept me or go to hell.

I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my attempt at humor regarding the tragedy in Japan. I meant no disrespect, and my thoughts are with the victims and their families.

With Katrina, it's almost like the sequel that doesn't live up to the original. It's certainly a shocking event and a tragedy, but somehow as a big event it doesn't seem to carry as much weight with the public as 9/11 did.

I was talking to Jesus, and I said, Jesus, I feel like no one will ever accept me. And Jesus looked at me and said, You know what my theory is? Accept me or go to hell.

If you have the Old Testament at home, if you flip the corner pages, you can see Jesus riding a horse.

I'm known for my slightly inappropriate remarks.

A man goes to the doctor for a check, and the doctor exams him and says I've got bad news, you've got cancer and alzheimers. The man goes Thank god I don't have cancer.

I always felt bad for Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa lived a whole life helping starving children and dying villages, but she could never be declared a saint 'cause she never actually performed a miracle. And it was towards the end, she was desperate to perform a miracle, so she would go up to starving children and go, 'What's that behind your ear? It's a quarter!

Every time you open the paper now, there seems to be another celebrity getting arrest for masturbation. First, it was Peewee Herman and then George Michael. If masturbation's a crime, I should be on death row.

At the Last Supper how come no one sat on the other side of the table? See, I think originally there were people sitting on the other side but those were the people going, You know, the air conditioning hits me right on the back on the neck.