Quotes from Billy Crystal

I went to my first game May 30, 1956, and Mantle was in the beginnings of his Triple Crown season. And he was drop-dead handsome.

Your first friends are your truest friends, I find. And the ones that stick are really special.

The truth is, in this age of Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat, we know way too much about athletes - and it's their fault.

Nobody is more truthful when he's acting than De Niro.

People are always telling you you're done. Someone's always telling you that, especially now in the day of social media.

I still don't love the darkness, though I've learned to smile in it a little bit, now and then.

I love Mickey Mantle. Would I have felt the same if I had known when I was eight years old what I know now?

As far as the media goes, I'm driving in the left lane at 28 miles an hour.

When you're 65, you're surprised by what turns you on.

I don't go to any of the big Academy parties while the show is on because, invariably, it turns to people watching me watch the host, and it's not comfortable. I watch at home and hope the show gets to be really good.

That's the thing about jazz: it's free flowing, it comes from your soul.

Can you imagine if Babe Ruth had had Twitter?

You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back.

Losing my parents, who I admired, loved and needed, it took a long time to be able to move on.

Of course my uncle was a giant, but my dad, in particular, had the house filled with these great Dixieland jazz stars, really the best of them: Henry Red Allen, Willie 'The Lion' Smith, Buster Bailey, Cutty Cutshall, Tyree Glenn, Zutty Singleton. These are all big names in the Dixieland world.

You really have to have some muscle to be on the stage in front of the world.

In my standup work, I always do these characters, older people who are just off to the side. It's easier to write a story about the guy who made it to the top, but the middle is so much more interesting, so much more murky.

Change is such hard work.

Nothing takes the sting out of these tough economic times like watching a bunch of millionaires giving golden statues to each other.

One night, I wrote down all the things I was waiting to do with my little granddaughter, and it became a book, 'I Already Know I Love You.' It was one of those really lovely things in life.

To this day, with all of these muscle-bound guys, nobody hit the ball further than Mickey Mantle, with his natural strength.

When I was growing up in the house, we'd watch the Oscars.

The Academy and the Oscars have been very gracious to me.

When comedy is good, it's jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It's all melody to me.