Dick Van Dyke Quotes & Sayings

I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit. — Dick Van Dyke

I survived - and looking back, I learned not to sweat the little stuff. — Dick Van Dyke

I sing and dance. That's my job. — Dick Van Dyke

I was lucky to get the kinds of parts I wanted. I always said I didn't want to do anything my kids can't see. — Dick Van Dyke

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility. — Dick Van Dyke

I never had a lot of drive, but because I had family responsibilities, I had a lot of tenacity - the tenacity of a drowning man. — Dick Van Dyke

Some people never change their mind through their whole lives, about anything, despite new information that comes in. And now that we know that homosexuality is not a choice, it's biological, I think we have to love and understand them. — Dick Van Dyke

We called ourselves the Burfords - Reverend Burford, Grandfather Burford, Cousin Burford, and so on. — Dick Van Dyke

We all need something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. — Dick Van Dyke

I went from my mother to my wife. And to this day, I can't bear to be alone. — Dick Van Dyke

Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.' — Dick Van Dyke

I have four children and I have seven grandkids. — Dick Van Dyke

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him. — Dick Van Dyke

Those songs [Mary Poppins score] didn't just get under my skin, they became a part of me then and there, and thinking about it now, they've never left. — Dick Van Dyke

Do you know that I was the anchor on the 'CBS Morning Show?' And my newsman was Walter Cronkite. — Dick Van Dyke

I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl. — Dick Van Dyke

So I think we're kind of an alternate choice for people who have had it with sex and violence. — Dick Van Dyke

You can spread jelly on the peanut butter but you can't spread peanut butter on the jelly. — Dick Van Dyke

Walt Disney and I always said we were two children looking for our inner adults. — Dick Van Dyke

I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least. — Dick Van Dyke

There are people with their iPads are taking pictures so much that they're not experiencing the moment. They go home and look at the pictures later. — Dick Van Dyke

'The Dick Van Dyke Show' was the most fun I ever had and the most creative period of my life. — Dick Van Dyke

So as my kids will tell you, they had a pretty normal life. — Dick Van Dyke

One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy. — Dick Van Dyke

I don't think we've got much of a chance to tell you the truth. But our main problem is our audience skews a little older than most shows, and I don't think our people can stay up that late. I certainly can't. — Dick Van Dyke

Everybody knows that I'm shorter, but it doesn't bother me at all. — Dick Van Dyke

The show became its own little world, with its own internal rhythm and high standards. — Dick Van Dyke

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least. — Dick Van Dyke

No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago. — Dick Van Dyke

I sing all day. And it's good for you. Good for your vocal cords. — Dick Van Dyke

I've won several Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, so maybe somebody will let me have an Oscar, and then I'll have a full set. — Dick Van Dyke

In the best of all worlds, the producers would take some responsibility for the kinds of things they're putting out. Unfortunately, they don't. — Dick Van Dyke

I wanted to be able to talk about my work at the dinner table and hold my head up on Sundays when my wife and I led our children into the Brentwood Presbyterian Church, where I was an elder. I did have a wild side, and I showed it every time I walked through the front door and my littlest child, Carrie Beth, made me dance to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's hit song "Tijuana Sauerkraut. — Dick Van Dyke

I can't work with my brother without laughing. — Dick Van Dyke

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people. — Dick Van Dyke

A lot of violence, a lot of gore in it, and I just didn't want to do that kind of thing. — Dick Van Dyke

It wasn't work. I played myself. — Dick Van Dyke

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know. — Dick Van Dyke

The most important thing for old guys is never start going down the stairs sideways. — Dick Van Dyke

I'm really in retirement. My career is over. I'm just playing now and having a great time. I like to keep busy, and I'm doing what's fun for me. — Dick Van Dyke

I married somebody half my age, and everybody thought I was crazy, but she is just an absolute angel. — Dick Van Dyke

Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night. — Dick Van Dyke

[My mother] once cooked a ham and later found it in my father's shirt drawer. I am not kidding. — Dick Van Dyke

People think I'm talking like I'm in perfect health, but I have all the infirmities for my age. I have arthritis and all those things. But if you keep moving, that won't bother you. — Dick Van Dyke

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years. — Dick Van Dyke

No, no, it was the relationships. That was that group. People believed that Rob and Laura were really married in real life. You know, a lot of people believed that. — Dick Van Dyke

Stan said he used to keep Hardy late, make him miss his golf game, and really get him mad. — Dick Van Dyke

I'm not a loner. I have to have a life partner. — Dick Van Dyke

I have four kids, seven grandkids, and four great-grandkids. Maybe I can become a great-great-grandfather if I hang on! — Dick Van Dyke

The secret to keeping moving is keeping moving. — Dick Van Dyke

I think, the 'Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Poppins' are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn't want it to end. — Dick Van Dyke

I'm always announcing my retirement. I'm still not retired. — Dick Van Dyke

Hope is life's essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning. I think you need somebody to love and take care of, and someone who loves you back. In that sense, I think the New Testament got it right. So did the Beatles. Without love, nothing has any meaning. — Dick Van Dyke

Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good. — Dick Van Dyke

When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young. — Dick Van Dyke

I cannot tell you what it means when children recognize. This is about the third generation for me. And when kids that small recognize me, it really pleases me, very gratifying. — Dick Van Dyke

My favorite unknown movie is 'The Comic.' — Dick Van Dyke

Why is it amazing that I don't act my age? Why should I act my age? Or more to the point, how is someone my age supposed to act? Old age is part fact, part state of mind, part luck, and wholly something best left for other people to ponder, not you or me. Why waste your time? I don't. — Dick Van Dyke

All of us involved say 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' was the best five years of our lives. We were like otters at play. — Dick Van Dyke

I've made peace with insecurity ... because there is no security of any kind. — Dick Van Dyke

'Mary Poppins' was one of the best experiences of my life. — Dick Van Dyke

I don't play golf. I have more fun singing and dancing. — Dick Van Dyke

We should never judge a day by its weather. — Dick Van Dyke

I've been talking about retiring for years. It's my standard answer to the question, 'What are your future plans?' The truth is, I'll always want to do things that are worthwhile or fun. — Dick Van Dyke

My kids are so much better parent than I was. — Dick Van Dyke

I turned down some movies that were quite good. mainly on the basis of taste. — Dick Van Dyke

I was the class clown, you know, that kind of thing, and I gathered around me a group of guys who also were silly. I was in all the plays and everything. But I don't know, at that time show businesses looked like the moon, you know, it was so far away. I wanted to be a radio announcer. — Dick Van Dyke

My wife, as proud as she was of me, hated show business for good reasons. There was something about the spouse always being pushed out of the way, shoved aside. She wanted to get away from it. — Dick Van Dyke

But I wish they would make a musical of some kind. I miss musicals so much. You don't see them anymore. — Dick Van Dyke

Today, if you're not an alcoholic, you're nobody. — Dick Van Dyke

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script. — Dick Van Dyke

You know, I'm almost out of the habit of watching episodic television now. — Dick Van Dyke

I taught Sunday school when I was younger, and ended up an elder in the church, and it just seemed to me that a lot of people who went to church certainly weren't - the rest of the week - living what I would call an Christian life. — Dick Van Dyke

Julie's voice could have been used to tune a piano. She was pitch perfect - and I never was. I was enjoyably close. — Dick Van Dyke

I've always been a bit of an orphan, because actors say, 'Well, he's more of a dancer.' And dancers say, 'No. He's really a singer.' And singers say, 'No. He's an actor.' — Dick Van Dyke

He wanted the show to be fresh to audiences 50 years down the line. — Dick Van Dyke

I worked nightclubs all through my 20s, and I was a teetotaler. — Dick Van Dyke

When I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me. — Dick Van Dyke

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.' — Dick Van Dyke

I didn't know the answers, but I could feel that the things that gave life meaning came from a place within and from the nurturing of values like tolerance, charity, and community. — Dick Van Dyke

Emotionally, I'm about 13. — Dick Van Dyke

Put me on solid ground and I'll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving. — Dick Van Dyke

I like 'The Office.' I particularly like the British version with Ricky Gervais. Of course, I liked the 'Seinfeld' show a lot. I thought that was an awfully good show. — Dick Van Dyke

I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him. — Dick Van Dyke

I got into a Broadway show before I ever sang and danced. I learned how after I got in the show. — Dick Van Dyke

I've had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the 'Van Dyke Show.' They said it looked like fun. — Dick Van Dyke

Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing. — Dick Van Dyke

As a younger man, though, I lacked confidence, the confidence that comes with experience. I worried and stressed way more than I should have. Now I see that worrying and stressing never helped accomplish anything. It was only when I let myself go and had fun that the magic happened - and continues to happen. Here — Dick Van Dyke

When I started having kids, I thought, 'I don't want to do anything they can't watch.' — Dick Van Dyke

In my seventies, I exercised to stay ambulatory. In my eighties, I exercise to avoid assisted living. — Dick Van Dyke

I loved to fall down. — Dick Van Dyke

I have also heard and read various accounts of why they [Sheldon Leonard and Carl Reiner] liked me. My favorites? I wasn't too good-looking, I walked a little funny, and I was basically kind of average and ordinary. I guess my lack of perfection turned out to be a winning hand. Let that be a lesson for future generations. — Dick Van Dyke

It means you never know what's going to happen,' I said. 'You do your best, then take your chances. Everything else is beyond our control. — Dick Van Dyke

Carl envisioned a show that would be timeless. He wanted it to be fresh to audiences fifty years down the line. — Dick Van Dyke

Something greater than me was happening. And yet, it was happening to me. — Dick Van Dyke

There's a lot of very funny people I'd love to work with that I've never met, of course. I love Steve Martin and Jim Carrey. — Dick Van Dyke

Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them. — Dick Van Dyke

I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play. — Dick Van Dyke

So at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did - played records. — Dick Van Dyke

You have to be able to laugh at yourself. Attitude is almost more important than what happens to you. — Dick Van Dyke