George Burns (1896-1996)

Quotes

• The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and have the two as close together as possible.

• First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down.

• Being an actor is easy, just picture someone in a room and you outside waiting for your cue to go in. Elliot Gould's been trying that for forty years.

• The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.

• If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

• It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

• I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

• I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.

• You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.

• You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.

• Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

• If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it.

• This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two.

• I was always taught to respect my elders and I've now reached the age when I don't have anybody to respect.

• I'd go out with women my age, but there are no women my age.

• I'm going to stay in show business until I'm the last one left.

• Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

• Age to me means nothing. I can't get old; I'm working. I was old when I was twenty-one and out of work. As long as you're working, you stay young. When I'm in front of an audience, all that love and vitality sweeps over me and I forget my age.

• Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.

• "Is it true that you smoke eight to ten cigars a day?"
  "That's true."
  "Is it true that you drink five martinis a day?"
  "That's true."
  "Is it true that you still surround yourself with beautiful young women?"
  "That's true."
  "What does your doctor say about all of this?"
  "My doctor is dead."