Carol Burnett Quotes

There's a quote of hers [Lucille Ball] that I've always loved: 'I guess I would rather regret the things I've done than to regret the things I've never done.

~ Carol Burnett

Comedy is tragedy - plus time.

~ Carol Burnett

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.

~ Carol Burnett

Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing.

~ Carol Burnett

My mother was very funny. My dad had a great sense of humor. My grandmother, too.

~ Carol Burnett

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

~ Carol Burnett

We don't stop going to school when we graduate.

~ Carol Burnett

But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life. I didn't even ask to be famous. All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.

~ Carol Burnett

Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.

~ Carol Burnett

I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.

~ Carol Burnett

I do the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle every morning to keep the old grey matter ticking.

~ Carol Burnett

But I don't begrudge anybody, because I know how hard it is to have that dream and to make it happen, whether or not it's just to put a roof over your head and food on the table.

~ Carol Burnett

Comedy is tragedy - plus time.

~ Carol Burnett

It's also selfish because it makes you feel good when you help others. I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers. That's why we're here, after all, to help others.

~ Carol Burnett

My interesting diet tips are eat early and don't nosh between meals. I mean, I can pack it away.

~ Carol Burnett

My grandmother and I saw an average of eight movies a week, double features, second run.

~ Carol Burnett

My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.

~ Carol Burnett

I'm really not that funny in real life! But I am the best audience one could find. I love to laugh.

~ Carol Burnett

Funny is funny. I dare anyone to look at Tim Conway and Harvey Korman doing the dentist sketch, which is more than 40 years old, and not scream with laughter.

~ Carol Burnett

Edgy is fine - I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination - but what's wrong with a good ol' belly laugh? I miss that.

~ Carol Burnett

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.

~ Carol Burnett

I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.

~ Carol Burnett

You have to go through the falling down in order to learn to walk. It helps to know that you can survive it. That's an education in itself.

~ Carol Burnett

I loved the Kennedy Center Honors because you just sit there, smile, wave, and cry.

~ Carol Burnett

It costs a lot to sue a magazine, and it's too bad that we don't have a system where the losing team has to pay the winning team's lawyers.

~ Carol Burnett