Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.

I like to get in among a set of people and get to know them very well.

I do things I love doing. Sometimes that is maybe going out to have a drink with friends, going out partying or whatever.

It just seems there’s better things to do in your life than be on television if it’s not interesting, if it’s not challenging, if it’s not fun. You know? When it stops being those things for me, I’ll stop making television.

I enjoy driving on the sim, doing stuff like that, staying at home.

The secret to humor is surprise.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

Is there a sharper commentary on American culture and the world than The Simpsons?

You think I’m going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

I’m a singer, not a politician, and I think you don’t want the two to get confused. It’s not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.

On a good night, I get underwear, bras, and hotel-room keys thrown onstage… You start to think that you’re Tom Jones.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

My family is very good about visiting me, and other friends as well.

I don’t watch television and I rarely go to the cinema, but I recently watched ‚The King’s Speech‘ on a flight. It was so beautiful and so simple.

I like a drama.

I do love the films I’ve done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we’re trying to make people laugh and I’m very proud of that.

Stand-up is hard.

I prefer to be in a video than to play with it.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

When you have good friends you’ve been around, every time they talk, you don’t give them your full attention. You don’t look them in the eye and stop. Half the time, you’re listening, half the time, you are ignoring them.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I’m a pretty funny guy, and I would love to do a comedy with a bunch of funny guys – movie-star guys, where they could help me through it.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

My philosophy is, it’s always very rewarding when you can make an audience laugh. I don’t mind making fun of myself. I like self-deprecating comedy. But I’d like you to laugh with me occasionally, too.

Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.

Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it’s a way to make a living.

I want more of my favorite artists or more of the guy that makes the anthems. I want more.

The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

I didn’t have to win, and winning wasn’t important to me. Being world champion wasn’t important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

Since childhood, I’ve been a clown. I’ve always liked being very funny or trying to make people laugh. It’s my original self.

Well, they’re Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you at golf.

Even though I’m known as a pop musician, I have a seriousness about what I do.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

I don’t spend too much time on my phone, laptop or television. However, I do occasionally watch documentaries and shows on streaming platforms.

If you tell me there’s something I can’t do, I’ll want to do it even more. Especially when it comes to entertaining.

Everything I learned I learned from the movies.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

As we all know, sequels can be tricky.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

I was very honored to get to be part of ‚American Idol.‘

What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.

I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night – and I’d dream about it being me.

In Hollywood you can see things at night that are fast enough to be in the Olympics in the day time.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you’re inviting a person into your life.

WWE is a space where I thrived, and I loved, and I still do. I love connecting with an audience; that is the greatest thing about going back to WWE.

According to Lifetime, I don’t know anything about TV.

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

What a blast it is to be here with Michael Moore.

Dinner was made for eating, not for talking.

Just as I wanted to outdo everyone when I played, I had to outdo everyone when we were out on the town.

When I do stand-up shows at colleges, girls will talk to me after the show, and that always feels good. I like talking to them.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

In the end, everything is a gag.

Disneyland is a show.

‚Kitchen Confidential‘ wasn’t a cautionary or an expose. I wrote it as an entertainment for New York tri-state area line cooks and restaurant lifers, basically; I had no expectation that it would move as far west as Philadelphia.