Happy Birthday Dick van Dyke!

Life is like a box of chocolates, I'm a nerd and I read books.

We had all week to rehearse. An audience would come in at the end of the week and we'd our little show. Most of the ad- libbing happened during the week on the show.

The Horny Toad in Cave Creek has great food. When I'm in Arizona, I have at least one meal there. I have a daughter who lives out there, and Dee Dee Wood, who was the choreographer on 'Mary Poppins,' lives out there. I still get out there once in a while, but not in the summer.

You know, I'm almost out of the habit of watching episodic television now.

I was 5 years old when the stock market crashed; I lost everything.

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.

 never even had a bachelorhood: I went straight from my parents' home to a marriage.

I can't work with my brother without laughing.

In my seventies, I exercised to stay ambulatory. In my eighties, I exercise to avoid assisted living.

In general, things either work out or they don’t, and if they don’t, you figure out something else, a plan B. There’s nothing wrong with plan B.

I like 'The Office.' I particularly like the British version with Ricky Gervais. Of course, I liked the 'Seinfeld' show a lot. I thought that was an awfully good show.

 Today, if you're not an alcoholic, you're nobody.

I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.

We all need something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.

I was the class clown, you know, that kind of thing, and I gathered around me a group of guys who also were silly. I was in all the plays and everything. But I don't know, at that time show businesses looked like the moon, you know, it was so far away. I wanted to be a radio announcer. 

I have four kids, seven grandkids, and four great-grandkids. Maybe I can become a great-great-grandfather if I hang on!

I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl. 

My brother and I laughed a lot as kids. We came up in the middle of the Depression, and 
neither one of us knew we were poor. We had nothing, but we didn't know it. 

The best writers were philosophers who wrapped their commentary about life in laughter.

Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.

As wonderful as they were, my parents didn't teach me anything about self-discipline, concentration, patience, or focus. If I hadn't had a family myself, I probably never would've done anything. Marriage taught me responsibility. 

A lot of violence, a lot of gore in it, and I just didn't want to do that kind of thing.

When I started having kids, I thought, 'I don't want to do anything they can't watch.'

I wanted to be Stan Laurel, then I wanted to be Fred Astaire and then Captain Kangaroo. I actually started out as a radio announcer when I was 17 and never left the business, so that's literally 70 years.

I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him.

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him.

I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!

Television's going, as far as I'm concerned, downhill, and I'm an anachronism.

I've had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the 'Van Dyke Show.' They said it looked like fun.

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.

Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.'

Here's the truth. Your teens and twenties are your Plan A. At 50, you're assessing whether Plan B or Plan C or any of the other plans you hatched actually worked. Your sixties and seventies, they're an improvisation.

I played a killer twice. Once on 'Matlock,' on Andy Griffith's show, I got to play the killer.

I cannot tell you what it means when children recognize. This is about the third generation for me. And when kids that small recognize me, it really pleases me, very gratifying.

I think, the 'Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Poppins' are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn't want it to end.

There are no sure answers, only better questions.

I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people. 

The American people hit the streets and did something that the government wouldn't do: the Civil Rights Act. It didn't go down well with the corporate world.

I don't think we've got much of a chance to tell you the truth. But our main problem is our audience skews a little older than most shows, and I don't think our people can stay up that late. I certainly can't.

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.'

I grew up in Danville, Illinois, right in the middle of the state.

I never had a lot of drive, but because I had family responsibilities, I had a lot of tenacity - the tenacity of a drowning man.

I have four children and I have seven grandkids.

I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.

I loved to fall down.

I'm not a loner. I have to have a life partner.

I never made a good movie.

'The Dick Van Dyke Show' was the most fun I ever had and the most creative period of my life.

I think it's being thrown at the wolves, we call it in our business. 

I found out retirement means playing golf, or I don't know what the hell it means. But to me, retirement means doing what you have fun doing.

I think most people will tell you that. They can go along and, while they're denying that they are addicted, say it's stress this, it's this, it's that. But I - it's - I think - I really believe there is a gene. Some people become addicted and others don't.

Just knowing you don't have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn - and those are all good things.

I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know.

My life has been a magnificent indulgence.

I turned down some movies that were quite good. mainly on the basis of taste.

I've always been a bit of an orphan, because actors say, 'Well, he's more of a dancer.' And dancers say, 'No. He's really a singer.' And singers say, 'No. He's an actor.'

I wanted to be a radio announcer.

I was lucky to get the kinds of parts I wanted. I always said I didn't want to do anything my kids can't see.

I was always in show business but in many ways was not really of show business. I didn't move in show business circles, particularly, still don't do it. 

Don't worry so much. Most of the things you worry about never end up happening.

I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit.

I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called 'My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.' A publisher came to me and said, 'Write a book,' so I did. I wanted to call it 'Everybody Else Has Got a Book.' 

My kids are so much better parent than I was.

'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was a movie that I repeatedly turned down. The movie's producer, Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me after the success we'd enjoyed with 'Mary Poppins.'

My son Barry, of course, has been on from the beginning. And his son Shane is playing now a med student regularly on the show. And at one point or another, I've had all four of his kids on the show. 

'Mary Poppins' was one of the best experiences of my life.

No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago.

When you're a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over, and you literally don't have a thought in your mind. It's purely meditation, and we lose that.

No, no, it was the relationships. That was that group. People believed that Rob and Laura were really married in real life. You know, a lot of people believed that.

The secret to keeping moving is keeping moving.

Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good.

I've made peace with insecurity... because there is no security of any kind.

Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing. 

It wasn't work. I played myself.

I've been talking about retiring for years. It's my standard answer to the question, 'What are your future plans?' The truth is, I'll always want to do things that are worthwhile or fun.

Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night.

But I wish they would make a musical of some kind. I miss musicals so much. You don't see them anymore.

So as my kids will tell you, they had a pretty normal life.

In Bernie Sanders, I see a man saying that the emperor has no clothes while everyone around him insists they see clothes. Whether or not he makes it to the White House, I hope and pray that everyone hears the alarm he is sounding now; it may be the last voice we ever hear.

So at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did - played records.

Be careful not to trip over the ottoman.

For some reason, as time gets short in life, wasting time escaping through entertainment bothers me.

So I think we're kind of an alternate choice for people who have had it with sex and violence. 

As a younger man, though, I lacked confidence, the confidence that comes with experience. I worried and stressed way more than I should have. Now I see that worrying and stressing never helped accomplish anything. It was only when I let myself go and had fun that the magic happened—and continues to happen.

Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he's playing.

Stan said he used to keep Hardy late, make him miss his golf game, and really get him mad.