Johnny Carson Quotations

I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.

Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.

Talent alone won't make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: 'Are your ready?'

If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.

Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.

My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.

Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.

The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.

Married men live longer than single men. But married men are a lot more willing to die.

New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

Never use a big word when a little filthy one will do.

Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.

Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.

If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.

For days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off.

People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.

I know you've been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.

For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.

guess what they want for a new four-door Chevy?

To this day I can't get aroused until I see a pair of rubber dice hanging from the mirror

Your chances of getting struck by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say ""Storms suck!

If variety if the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam

Everybody I meet in public seems to want to audition for me. If I ask a guy what time it is, he'll sing it to me.

I play my life straight - the way I see it. I'm grateful to audiences for watching me and for enjoying what I do - but I'm not one of those who believe that a successful entertainer is made by the public, as is so often said.

I'm an entertainer; I try to give the public what it wants while I'm on the screen, and I'm completely sincere about it. If I don't happen to be a laughing boy off the screen, that doesn't make me a hypocrite or a phony.

When the public starts classifying you as thoughtful, someone given to serious issues, you find yourself declassified as a humorist.

Who cares what entertainers on the air think about international affairs? Who would want to hear me about Vietnam? They can hear all they want from people with reason to be respected as knowledgeable.

I think students ought to have the right to protest, but not to the point of anarchy.

Money gives me just one big thing that's really important, and that's the freedom of not having to worry about money.

There's a big difference between being a loner and being lonely. I'm far from lonely. My day is full of things I enjoy, starting with my show. Any time my work is going well and I have a relationship with a woman that's pretty solid, that does it for me.

I think it's almost immoral to keep on with a marriage that's really bad. It just gets more and more rotten and vindictive and everybody gets more and more hurt. There's not enough honesty about marriage, I think. I wish more people would face the truth about their marital situations.

I owe one thing to my public - the best performance I can give.

I can't go anywhere without being bugged by somebody. I'd love to just hike out down the street, or drop in a restaurant, or wander in the park, or take my kids somewhere without collecting a trail of people. But I can't.

You become successful, the way I see it, only if you're good enough to deliver what the public enjoys. If you're not, you won't have any audience; so the performer really has more to do with his success than the public does.

Entertainment is like any other major industry; it's cold, big business. The business end wants to know one thing: Can you do the job? If you can, you're in, you're made; if you can't, you're out.

I get sick of that old rationalization, "We're staying together because of the children." Kids couldn't be more miserable living with parents who can't stand each other. They're far better off if there's an honest, clean divorce.

As long as I don't commit any crimes, you have no right to judge me except by my performance as a professional. On that level, you're welcome to think whatever you want about me.

From the time I was a little kid, I was always shy. Performing was when I was outgoing. So I guess I am a loner. I get claustrophobia if a lot of people are around.

I don't think it's you that changes with success - it's the people around you who change. Because of your new status, they change in relation to you.

Find me any performer anywhere who isn't egocentric. You'd better believe you're good, or you've got no business being out there.

There's a lot of hypocrisy in audiences. I'd never dream of telling even on a nightclub stage, let alone my show, some of the jokes that are told in a lot of the living rooms from which we get those letters!

People are brought up to think, "It's nice to be modest. It's nice to hide your light under a bushel." Well, bullshit! I've never bought that. In my business, the only thing you've really got is your talent; it's the only thing you have to sell.

I demand my right to a private life, just as I respect that right for everybody else.

Like their parents, kids flock to see James Bond and Derek Flint movies - outrageously antiheroic heroes who break all the taboos, making attractive the very things the kids are told they shouldn't do themselves.

It's the lack of this kind of open and honest education about sex that causes so many kids to grow up with sexual hang-ups.

In 1932, lame duck president Herbert Hoover was so desperate to remain in the White House that he dressed up as Eleanor Roosevelt. When FDR discovered the hoax in 1936, the two men decided to stay together for the sake of the children.

It was so hot today I saw a robin dipping his worm in Nestea.It was so hot today I saw a pigeon walking in the shadow of Orson Welles.It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, "if you want it your way, cook it yourself.

He's so fat, he can be his own running mate.

The Champagne they have stored is getting more valuable every year.

Ronald Reagan just signed the new tax law. But I think he was in Hollywood too long. He signed it, 'Best wishes, Ronald Reagan.'

Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.

They say atomic rad-i-ation can hurt your reproductive organs. My answer is, so can a hockey stick. But we don't stop building them.

Happiness is seeing the muscular lifeguard all the girls were admiring leave the beach hand in hand with another muscular lifeguard.

Your chances of getting hit by lighting go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say "Storms suck!!

It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, "if you want it your way, cook it yourself."

The best way to thaw a frozen turkey? Blow in it's ear.

The difference between divorce and legal separation is that legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.

As you all know by now, this is the 51st annual Academy Awards. Two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over a four-hour show.

I can't say I ever wanted to become an entertainer. I already was one, sort of-around the house, at school, doing my magic tricks, throwing my voice and doing Popeye impersonations. People thought I was funny; so I kind of took entertaining for granted It was inevitable that I'd start giving little performances.

There was this billy goat at a movie studio who found and ate a can of film. When a nanny asked him how he liked it, he said, "It was all right but I liked the book better."

I couldn't care less what anybody says about me. I live my life, especially my personal life, strictly for myself.... Whatever you do, you're going to be criticized. I feel the one sensible thing you can do is try to live in a way that pleases you.

The Hollywood tradition I like best is called “sucking up to the stars.

Maybe we should hold the next [Olympic] games in Afghanistan and hope the Soviets pull out of that one too.

The good news is that the president gets another chance. The bad news is that he'll be two weeks older.

Never marry a girl named 'Marie' who used to be known as 'Murray'.

There are very few Japanese Jews. As a result, there is no Japanese word for Alan King.

I am one of the lucky people in the world; I found something I always wanted to do, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it.

We're more effective than birth control pills.

Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto. Usually a mop or a leaf blower.

I am taking the applause sign home, putting it in the bedroom.

I never analyze it. Analyzing it would just be a waste of time. I just go out and do it.

I have an ego like anybody else, but I don't need to be stoked by going before the public all the time.

I hear that whenever someone in the White House tells a lie, Nixon gets a royalty.

People are hypocrites. If you ask them what they want to see on TV, they'll tell you they want better quality programming. And then what do they watch? 'Gilligan's Island.'

The only issue cash presents you is the independence of not stressing about funds.

That would have been a great ticket, Reagan and Ford - an actor and a stuntman.

I know a guy who gave up smoking cigarettes, consuming, sex, and wealthy meals.

If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace.

Democracy means free television, not good television, but free.

We have two kinds of air: regular and chunky style.

Believe me, you don't walk away from the kind of money you make with a daily television show. You might get awful tired of it sometimes, but take a second look at the check and you get less tired right away.

Happiness is being served with a paternity suit on your 75th birthday.

Last night, it was so cold, the flashers in New York were only describing themselves.

Pittsburgh is kind of like Newark without the cultural advantages.

May you have the income of a Republican and the sex life of a Democrat!

I see a lot of new faces. Especially on the old faces.

According to statistics, it's a lot easier to get hit by lightning than to win a Lotto jackpot. The good side: you don't hear from your relatives.

I hated my last boss. He asked, Why are you two hours late? I said, I fell downstairs. He said, That doesn't take two hours.

NBC's a little jealous of CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer. They want to get a reporter with a macho-sounding name too, so they're changing Irving R. Levine's name to Scud Shrapnel.

Egyptian President Sadat had a belly dancer entertain President Nixon at a state dinner. Mr. Nixon was really impressed. He hadn't seen contortions like that since Rose Mary Woods.

Do you know my dream? I really want to become an aluminum-siding salesman.

George Burns has been on my show twenty or thirty times, or maybe more. How can you turn down a guy that age?

Happiness is sitting down to watch some slides of your neighbor's vacation and finding out that he spent two weeks in a nudist colony.

Having money gives me the freedom to worry about the things that really matter.

Happiness is a tiger in your tank and a pussycat in your back seat.

A two-pound turkey and a fifty-pound cranberry-that's Thanksgiving dinner at Three Mile Island.

It's silly to have as one's sole object in life just making money, accumulating wealth. I work because I enjoy what I'm doing, and the fact that I make money at it - big money - is a fine-and-dandy side fact. Money gives me just one big thing that's really important, and that's the freedom of not having to worry about money. I'm concerned about values - moral, ethical, human values - my own, other people's, the country's, the world's values. Having money now gives me the freedom to worry about the things that really matter.