Quotes from Alan King

A summary of every Jewish holiday: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat!

When I read Dickens for the first time, I thought he was Jewish, because he wrote about oppression and bigotry, all the things that my father talked about.

I was a high school throw-out.

Comedy is an amazing calling. Once you get that first laugh, it's hard to turn away. Then, of course, you're hooked and you have to learn how to survive in the business.

You do live longer with bran, but you spend the last fifteen years on the toilet.

If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books.

Did you hear the one about the elderly Jew on his deathbed who sent for a priest, after declaring to his astonished relatives that 'I want to convert.' Asked why he would become a Catholic, after living all his life as a Jew, he answered: 'Better one of them should die than one of us.'

Everything my mother made had to cook for 80 hours, and when she made matzoh balls she didn't know fluffy. Everything sank.

My wife is a very attractive woman, and she's always worried about her diet. But she doesn't pay attention to me, and I don't pay attention to her. She's a vegetarian, and it drives me crazy.

I think one of the big things about comedy is the ability for the audience to identify.

My father was a dreamer - my hero. He was a smart, tough guy from Poland, a cutter of lady's handbags, an old socialist-unionist who always considered himself a failure. His big line was: 'Don't end up like me.'

There's nobody to believe in anymore, nobody to trust.

That's the great thing about New Year's, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn't such a joke, because my birthday was always around this time. When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That's what the trees are all about.

Smoked salmon is for dinner. Belly lox is for breakfast. Don't get that mixed up.

My mother kept the house clean and we ate good. I didn't know we were poor until I started giving interviews.

My brother is the youngest member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. And I wouldn't let him cut my nails.

Right when I started in show... Milton Berle was my first idol. When I was a kid, I went to see Milton at Lowe's State, and I never laughed so much, and I said, 'That's who I want to be; that's what I want to be.'

I can't stay friends with anyone who doesn't have a passion for something; and, generally speaking, artistic people, creative people carry it right into the kitchen, too. They have a zest for life; the excitement of living. All of the great eaters I've known are also men of great wit.

When I was in the hospital they gave me apple juice every morning, even after I told them I didn't like it. I had to get even. One morning, I poured the apple juice into the specimen tube. The nurse held it up and said, 'It's a little cloudy.' I took the tube from her and said, 'Let me run it through again,' and drank it. The nurse fainted.

I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.

Banks have a new image. Now you have 'a friend,' your friendly banker. If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?

The ability to absorb a book and make someone else's words and story your own was exactly was I was doing on stage.

Performing is just standing up there and doing something. Performance takes on an edge to it. It has a more dramatic context.

I'm only... I'm only unhappy when the reviews are bad, but give me a good review and I'm a... I'm just screaming all over the place with joy.