Quotes from George Burns

Yale men do not like to be told anything by people who didn't go to Yale. The closest I came to Yale was once I had one of their padlocks.

People are always asking me how much I'm worth. Well, all I can say is, I've got enough money to last me the rest of my life. As long as I die in the next 20 minutes.

There's an old saying, 'Life begins at forty.' That's silly. Life begins every morning you wake up.

I get up every morning and read the obituary column. If my name's not there, I eat breakfast.

I love to sing, and I love to drink scotch. Most people would rather hear me drink scotch.

And God said 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan.'

Should I be the one to play God? We're both about the same age, but we grew up in different neighborhoods.

When we played the back end of a horse we always knew that if we worked hard and did a good job we could become the front end.

It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.

Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman ... or a bad woman.

Everyday happiness means you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.

You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.

I can't understand why I flunked American history. When I was a kid there was so little of it.

In show business the key word is honesty. Once you've learned to fake that, the rest is easy.

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down.

I'm at the age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.

In those days the best painkiller was ice; it wasn't addictive and it was particularly effective if you poured some whiskey over it.

When asked in his late 90s if his doctor knew he still smoked, Burns said, 'No ... he's dead.'

How can I die? I'm booked.

If it's a good script I'll do it. And if it's a bad script, and they pay me enough, I'll do it.

I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere.

Love is a lot like a backache. It doesn't show up on x-rays, but you know it's there.

I was brought up to respect my elders, so now I don't have to respect anybody.

At home we ate fish every Friday, as Catholics were then supposed to do. Being Jewish, I compromised. I wore a hat when I ate fish, out of respect for my own religion and the fish's family.