Comedians Don`t Get Oscars, So

I Ignored My Stand-up Career For Twenty-five Years, But Now, Having Finished This Memoir, I View This Time With Surprising Warmth. One Can Have, It Turns Out, An Affection For The War Years.

I Would Assign Every Lie A Color: Yellow When They Were Innocent, Pale Blue When They Sailed Over You Like The Sky, Red Because I Knew They Drew Blood. And Then There Was The Black Lie. That's The Worst Of All. A Black Lie Was When I Told You The Truth.

I Knew I Wanted To Be In Show Business So I Took The Path Of Least Resistance. I Loved Comedy. But You Never Know You Are Funny Until People Laugh. It's Just What I Was Interested In. I Could Make People Laugh, I Guess, But Doing It At School And Doing It Onstage Are Very Different Things.

An Apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath The Dignity Of Any Gentleman, However Wrong He Might Be.

I Was Very Vulnerable To Criticism For Many Years. I Could Read A Bad Review And Remember It My Whole Life.