Quotes from Dana Carvey

I used to sneak up to the 8th floor and watch Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo rehearsing 'Saturday Night Live' and could only wonder if I would ever have the chance to be funny. It took me five years to go up the two stories, but it is such a sense of fulfillment to be able to show what I can do on national television.

We didn't even think about it, you know? I used to collect laser discs, and you'd have some college professor analyzing It's a Wonderful Life or Citizen Kane, and now it is pretty funny - the idea of commentary for a silly kid's movie, you know?

You know ladies and gentlemen, a long time ago , there were lots of people, but that was a long time ago

I recently found out about this other super movie star. He only works from about 11:00 to 4:00, so all his movies take like 120 days. But this was a lot of stuff to do in 35 days.

I have no regrets. I wanted to raise the kids and be a present father. When I developed a movie, I was gone for a year. That didn't really work for me. That isn't fair to make these life-forms and then disappear.

I've never really worked on them. Just once in a while one hits me and makes me laugh. My Al Gore was sort of like a gay Gomer Pyle.

Definitely for me, my personality, having children was a definite sea change. I found it very, very hard to balance show business and being a dad. The narcissism of show business and the complete, total focus of it was very difficult.

The two things that can hurt you are if you need money or if you need fame. Those are the things that can be your Achilles heel. But if you don't need money and you don't need fame, then you're free.

I think there's a big price to pay for consciousness, knowing that it's all going to end and we're mortal. I envy dogs. They don't know they're getting old! And they don't know it's towards the end. I mean, they never think, 'I used to get by on 16 hours of sleep a day. Now, if I don't get 19, I'm a wreck.'

I know it's a cliche, but the whole family is just whacked. I mean, we're all out of our minds. They're the funniest, most eccentric bizarre people I've ever met, my siblings.

Describing comic sensibility is near impossible. It's sort of an abstract silliness, that sometimes the joke isn't the star.

I did a sitcom with Desi Arnaz Jr. in a pilot called 'Whacked Out.' We were bombing, and Lucille Ball grabbed the mic and started berating the audience.

Monty Python never directly said, 'We're liberals' - they just did their sketches, and you had to figure it out. Generally, they were anti-establishment, of course, making fun of the people in power. I think, comedians, that's their job - pointing out what other people might not notice and going, 'Yoo-hoo, over here.'

I really enjoy being a dad, and maybe I took it too seriously, but I love being around my kids.

In maybe 1963, we had 'Collier's Encyclopedia,' and they sent us their yearly LP. I heard the Beatles talking on there. That was the first time I tried altering my voice, doing a Liverpudlian accent.

While many comics have a secret persona, I fundamentally want to be myself.

I couldn't do any of my other characters, you know? But I could have done the lady. Church Lady's Malibu Beach party is an idea I have for a movie, too. Yes.

This movie will actually increase the sex life of parents everywhere because they can put this on, with the 45 minutes of extras and they've got almost two hours to do whatever they've got to do while the kids watch the movie.

That's why modern corporate movie making has become so laborious that comedians are kind of kicked out by 50.

It's almost like he's started to sound even more exotic the more people started doing him. I don't know why, but there's just something about Al Gore that makes me laugh.

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it.

I'm from the old school - you go where the power is, and you try to make fun of it. When it becomes off limits to say or do certain things without being brutalized or censored or whatever, it's unfortunate.

I always tend to think of all of my shows as possibly my last show. I'm like a junior Springsteen, without the underbite.

I have this dream life where I get to be a celebrity but I get to navigate the world fairly easily because I'm always in character.