Quotes from Jonathan Winters

I don't paint every day. I'm not that motivated. I don't do anything the same every day.

I've done for the most part pretty much what I intended - I ended up doing comedy, writing and painting. I've had a ball. And as I get older, I just become an older kid.

I began painting well before I started doing comedy. In fact, when I came out of the war in 1946, I enrolled in art school in Dayton, Ohio. I painted for three years, and then show business took hold.

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation.

My mother had a radio show - a Barbara Walters type of gal and was very successful for about 20-some years on a radio station.

I was always an observer, even as a child. I could be satisfied to sit in a car for 3 hours and just look at the street go by while my mother went shopping.

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.

I find painting a much slower process than comedy, where you can go a mile a minute verbally and hope to God that some of the people out there understand you.

God is in my head, but the devil is in my pants.

When you wear so many hats in society, you never know who you are. That's the beauty of it. Because once you find out who you are, you're screwed.

Throughout my life, I've been gratified that I've been able to keep the child in me alive and inspire others.

You've got to be an observer. And you've got to take time to listen to people, talk, to watch what they do.

I don't do anything the same every day. Discipline is tough for a guy who is a rebel.

Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning - it's a man or a woman without a sense of humor.

I was always an observer, even as a child. I could be satisfied to sit in a car for 3 hours and just look at the street go by while my mother went shopping.

My mother and father were very strange people. They tried to be funny which is always very sad to me.

I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.

Life is a shit sandwich. But if you've got enough bread, you don't taste the shit.

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to meet it!

You come into this world, not knowing who you are, and sometimes, if you live long enough, you go out not knowing who you are.

I couldn't wait for success ? so I went ahead without it.

Reality, as frightening as it is, is very very funny.

If your ship doesn't come in, Swim out to meet it!