Johnny Carson Quotes & Sayings

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. — Johnny Carson

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!! — Johnny Carson

Only lie about the future. — Johnny Carson

There's only one critic whose opinion I really value, in the final analysis: Johnny Carson. I have never needed any entourage standing around bolstering my ego. I'm secure. I know exactly who and what I am. I don't need to be told. I make no apologies for being the way I am. — Johnny Carson

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

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

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

As for being sociable, I hate the phoniness in the showbiz world. I know this will be taken wrong, but I don't like clubs and organizations. I was never a joiner. — Johnny Carson

I'm often asked, 'What is your favorite moment during the 30 years you hosted The Tonight Show?' I really don't have just one. The times I enjoyed the most were the spontaneous, unplanned segments that just happened, like Ed Ames' infamous 'Tomahawk Toss' that produced one of the longest laughs in television history. When these lucky moments happen, you just go with them and enjoy the experience and high of the moment. — Johnny Carson

The price of Christmas toys is outrageous - a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars for video games for the youngsters. I remember a Christmas years ago when my son was a kid. I bought him a tank. It was about a hundred dollars, a lot of money in those days. It was the kind of tank you could actually get inside and ride in. He played in the box it came in. It taught me a very valuable lesson. Next year he got a box. And I got a hundred dollars' worth of scotch. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

Democracy means free television, not good television, but free. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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

An oxymoron? What's that? A moron who studies at Oxford? — Johnny Carson

Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire. — Johnny Carson

I don't run with anybody's herd. I don't like crowds. I don't like going to fancy places. I don't like the whole nightclub scene. Cocktail parties drive me mad. So I do my job and I stay away from the rest of it. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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

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

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.' — Johnny Carson

The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other. — Johnny Carson

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

People will pay more to be entertained than educated. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

Happiness is ... finding two olives in your martini when youre hungry. — Johnny Carson

In Hollywood if you don't have a shrink, people think you're crazy. — Johnny Carson

Happiness is seeing your son drafted the same day he's been accepted to an expensive college. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

Whatever you do, you're going to be criticized. — Johnny Carson

Happiness is discovering the prune juice your doctor ordered you to drink has fermented. — Johnny Carson

Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair. — Johnny Carson

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

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

For 3 days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but the phone calls taper off. — Johnny Carson

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

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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

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

Talking about sexual morality, I wouldn't agree that it's declining, but it's certainly changing. Young and old, we are very much in the process of taking a fresh look at the whole issue of morality. The only decline that's taking place - and it's about time - is in the old puritanical concept that sex is equated with sin. — Johnny Carson

I can empathize with President [George Bush]. I know what it feels like having a young guy waiting around for you to keel over. — Johnny Carson

We're more effective than birth control pills. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

Did you know Richard Nixon is the only president whose formal portrait was painted by a police sketch artist? — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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! — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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

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." — Johnny Carson

Americans, too many of them, take themselves too seriously. You're going to get rapped - by the viewers, by the sponsors and by the network brass - if you joke about doctors, lawyers, dentists, scientists, bus drivers, I don't care who. You can't make a joke about Catholics, Negroes, Jews, Italians, politicians, dogs or cats. In fact, politicians, dogs and cats are the most sacred institutions in America. — Johnny Carson

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

The vast majority of us don't want to face the fact that we're in the middle of a sweeping social revolution. In sex. In spiritual values. In opposition to wars no one wants. In opposition to government big-brotherhood. In civil rights. In basic human goals. They're all facets of a general upheaval. — Johnny Carson

The closest thing to Roseanne Barr's singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered. — Johnny Carson

Asked how he became a star, Mr. Carson once replied, I started in a gaseous state and then I cooled. — Johnny Carson

The Hollywood tradition I like best is called sucking up to the stars. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

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

Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whiskey, and a dog to eat the rare steak. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

If life were fair, Elvis would still be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. — Johnny Carson

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

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

When turkeys mate they think of swans. — Johnny Carson

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. — Johnny Carson

Pie throwing is kind of a lost art, and although it may be a rather rudimentary, burlesque humor, there's something inherently funny about taking a pie in the face, under the right conditions. — Johnny Carson

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

Democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head - this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle. — Johnny Carson

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

How much of the national news that you report to the public each night consists of information you've actually gone out and dug up on your own? — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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. — Johnny Carson

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

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