“I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.”

“I would love to do a movie with Albert Brooks; we're so different, but I find him so funny, and I can be just as seemingly narcissistic as he comes off, the 'it's all about me' kind of thing.”

“All my children inherited perfect pitch.”

“Parrots make great pets. They have more personality than goldfish.”

“Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on 'Saturday Night Live' as the head writer the first year we started it.”

“Nobody prepares you for what happens when you get famous, and I didn't handle it well.”

“Frank Capra's grandson was a second Assistant Director on 'Christmas Vacation.'”

“Comparing 'Christmas Vacation' to 'It's A Wonderful Life' is the silliest thing. That film starred the greatest movie actor of all time, and the idea that our movie could ever be connected in some fashion to something so brilliant and beautiful always made feel like, 'That's all they had to write about?'”

“I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.”

“A laugh is a surprise. And all humor is physical. I was always athletic, so that came naturally to me.”

“Let's not call physical comedy falling down and pratfalls. All humor is physical, no matter how you dish it out. It's timing, like a dancer or an athlete would have.”