Don Rickles Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Don Rickles.
Famous Quotes By Don Rickles
I have no idea what I'm going to say when I stand up to give a toast. But I do know that anything I say I find funny. — Don Rickles
Everything I do on stage, I made up in saloons. I started doing it in front of people, and that became my performance. I never had writers. — Don Rickles
Every night when I go out on stage, there's always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I'm always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I'm not going to offend! — Don Rickles
I've been hot, I've been lukewarm, I've been freezing, but I've always been a headliner. — Don Rickles
When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don't mind, but he has it in his back pocket. — Don Rickles
I never could tell a joke. I just started talking to the audience, and when the drunks would yell, "Hey, when do the broads come on?" I got good at saying, "Relax. Clear your skin up first." They called me "the insult guy," but it's never mean-spirited. I'm just exaggerating everything about us and about life. — Don Rickles
No matter where you go in this world, you will always find a Jew sitting in the beach chair next to you. — Don Rickles
Sex is great, but when you get to be my age, you've got to pace it a little bit. Otherwise you get tired. — Don Rickles
I was in World War II; I cried when they took me in the Navy. That's the last time I cried. — Don Rickles
When I first went to Vegas, there were just high-rollers and gamblers and the wise guys treated you great. — Don Rickles
I have a wonderful road manager, and he travels with me. And my valet and friend travels with me. My little entourage is great, and they take good care of me. — Don Rickles
I've never had guys sit me down and say this is what you've got to do. It's my personality that makes me one of a kind, and I believe that. — Don Rickles
I'm not a big one for jokes. I can't tell a joke, believe it or not. If you gave me a thousand bucks and said, 'Don, get up at a party and tell a joke', I'm the worst. — Don Rickles
In the 45 years I've worked in casinos, I dreamed of being honored by an organization like the American Gaming Association, especially since I don't even have a hunting license. — Don Rickles
To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it. — Don Rickles
When you stand alone and sell yourself, you can't please everyone. But when you're different, you can last. — Don Rickles
I grew up in an Orthodox family, as I grew older, I became Conservative and that's how it ended up. But I've developed that Jewish feel to my act from my surroundings and my family. — Don Rickles
They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities. — Don Rickles
It takes many years to be a great comedian. — Don Rickles
You know what's funny to me? Attitude. — Don Rickles
I'm always watching films. The Academy pretty much sends me every film that's ever been done. I enjoy watching them, especially with the people I know. — Don Rickles
Some people call me a legend and the last of the greats, and I appreciate it. — Don Rickles
I take pride in being very unique in what I do. Nobody else can do what I do and I don't mean to say that egotistically, it's just something in my personality. — Don Rickles
My whole act is off the top of my head. — Don Rickles
I'd like to think my performance is today. I never try to - it's so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people. — Don Rickles
Sinatra was somebody special. — Don Rickles
I have my own gym. When you do jokes and they sell, you get a gym. — Don Rickles
I'm not one of those guys who wants to die on a stage. — Don Rickles
Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib. — Don Rickles
I don't feel an obligation to give everyone a hard time, but when they're important people, it's fun. — Don Rickles
When you talk about George Burns you're talking about a living legend ... well, a legend, anyhow. — Don Rickles
The average person pushes an elevator button 6 or 7 minutes before realizing it's not working. I did a study on this, you know. — Don Rickles
When I walk down the street in New York, I swear to God, the building constructor, the guy pounding cement and what not, will yell, 'Hey, you hockey puck!' — Don Rickles
In our day we went from - we went into saloons. We couldn't cross over like you can today, get a television series and all of a sudden you're a major movie star, you know. — Don Rickles
It's very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that. — Don Rickles
You've got to be able to sell yourself. — Don Rickles
I write my own tweets. — Don Rickles
I was always the guy - out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid. — Don Rickles
I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all my years in Vegas. — Don Rickles
So many young people think the big sex act is the whole movie, but that's not the case. You need to be able to talk and laugh and cry together. — Don Rickles
I have to have energy because I have a lot of expenses. A couple of cars, couple of dogs and a big estate. — Don Rickles
I say things I get away with, and it becomes a joke. — Don Rickles
I've never walked off stage and said, I shouldn't have done that. Because when you do what I do, you're like a fighter. You throw the right hand and say, That's what got me to this dance. You can't have doubt. If you have doubt, there's no show. — Don Rickles
Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones. — Don Rickles
Famous people are deceptive. Deep down, they're just regular people. Like Larry King. We've been friends for forty years. He's one of the few guys I know who's really famous. One minute he's talking to the president on his cell phone, and then the next minute he's saying to me, 'Do you think we ought to give the waiter another dollar?' — Don Rickles
The thing I love about Vegas is that it's a melting pot. It's like working Ellis Island. — Don Rickles
I don't really tell a joke, I react to situations. The whole thing is just looking at somebody and showing all our weaknesses and exaggerating them, and that's how it becomes funny. — Don Rickles
Once in a while, when I'm alone, I think about my age. I think, How many more years do I have on this earth? But I can't really conceive of dying. Somehow, in my head, I don't think I'll die. I know that everybody dies, of course. I just think that it'll never come to me. It's crazy, but there it is. — Don Rickles
I've got an accountant who's been with me forty years. If he makes a mistake, he dies. — Don Rickles
I always enjoy being full of fun, but I have my serious moments. Some women go for the studious kind of guy, I certainly was not that. If a girl is looking for somebody different and maybe a little more exciting for themselves - someone more on the fun side, I would suggest that they look for a type like Don Rickles. — Don Rickles
Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I'm not a black. — Don Rickles
Sinatra had a lot of mood swings, but he was wonderful to my wife Barbara and to me. He made no bones about who he liked and who he loved, and he had this great charisma. When he walked into a room, it stopped. I've only seen that happen with Ronald Reagan. — Don Rickles
When I'm onstage, I'm acting. — Don Rickles
Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed. — Don Rickles
People think being in your seventies means sitting around in a chair with a blanket over your legs, drooling. — Don Rickles
My wife, Barbara, is great. She arranges when I do work that I have a day off between performances. — Don Rickles
I never went out looking for glory. — Don Rickles
When you do comedy, you can't please the world, although I'd like to think that most of my audiences were on my side. — Don Rickles
The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor. — Don Rickles
I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I'd better write a book. — Don Rickles
If I have learned anything, it is to keep my wife happy by sending her lavish gifts. Other men can learn from my success and send their wives and girlfriends fresh flowers for birthdays, anniversaries, and of course, Valentine's Day. — Don Rickles
Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap. — Don Rickles
Political correctness? In my humor, I never talk about politics. I was never much into all that. — Don Rickles
Las Vegas is the boiling pot of entertainment. — Don Rickles
Whatever you do to gain success, you have to hang in there and hope good things happen. Always think positive. — Don Rickles
I have a problem, if the light goes on on TV and it blinks midnight, I don't know how to fix it. — Don Rickles
I don't like to compare myself with anybody. — Don Rickles
The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now. — Don Rickles
Compared to what some of the young comics use for material today, I'm a priest. — Don Rickles
Johnny Carson was a big influence on me - all of those shows I did with him over the years, like, 100 of them, they made a bit of a name for me at the time, so that part of my life was very good. — Don Rickles
I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He'd just pick up the couch and walk out of the room. — Don Rickles
You throw your best punch, otherwise don't do it. — Don Rickles
It's tough having the last name Rickles. Luckily, my kids handled it great. — Don Rickles
Now when I'm not working, I don't really hang out with the young comics. — Don Rickles
I was a mother's boy. — Don Rickles
I would describe myself as a guy that's very normal but has the tendency to rib people, but never in a mean-spirited way. — Don Rickles
Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera. — Don Rickles
An insult is mean or unkind. Milton Berle called me the Sultan of Insult, and I was called the King of Insult. But the guy that gave me the best title - and I use it to this day - was Johnny Carson. He called me Mr. Warmth. — Don Rickles
After I graduated, I tried Broadway, which was difficult for me. It was tough to get a part on Broadway, so I just started talking to audiences at different social gatherings, and little by little I became Don Rickles - whatever that is. — Don Rickles
I mean, in my - and I'm not trying to do spilled milk, but in those days it was a little - I think it was much tougher, because you got an image, and you were in a saloon. And it was tough to come out of a saloon and to get in films, and to maintain an image, you know. — Don Rickles
My style is my personality. It's always been that way. Being a wiseguy and having fun. It's always been that way for me, when I was in high school, and in the Navy. It's not something I rehearse. — Don Rickles
I stopped smoking. But my personality I still have. I get up in the morning, and not everybody loves me, so if you want to call that a bad habit, there's that. — Don Rickles
You lose your energy, you lose that excitement and it gets the audience up. — Don Rickles
I always rib people, but nobody ever gives me a hard time. I don't know why. Maybe they're afraid of what I might say. There's probably a lesson in that somewhere, but I don't know what it is. — Don Rickles
I've never been able to tell jokes. In the beginning of my career I did impressions and jokes like any other comedian, but I was never very successful because I did it poorly. So I started to talk to the audience and started talking about the atmosphere around me and started to become angry, not in a mean-spirited way, but in a fun way - and my attitude developed from there. — Don Rickles
I don't really tell a joke per se, I build up an attitude and it becomes a joke. — Don Rickles