Quote

When I would be myself, I was being big-headed. I was being egotistical. I was a megalomaniac, when it really was just having not to be a monkey for a few hours a day. And fulfilling the need to be a man.

Jerry Lewis

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Jerry Lewis
Age: 91 †
Born: 1926
Born: March 16
Died: 2017
Died: August 20
Comedian
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Musician
Screenwriter
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Newark
New Jersey
Joseph Levitch
The King of Comedy
Bigs
Megalomaniac
Need
Megalomaniacs
Needs
Egotistical
Really
Monkey
Would
Headed
Men
Monkeys
Fulfilling
Hours

More quotes by Jerry Lewis

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A lot of people resent that I've been in someone's life for 50 years. Why shouldn't people have an affection for me and what I've done? Didn't I have to be genuine for them to buy into what I did? There are children who grow up today who will not have that when they're 55 years old. With whom will they have it? Name an example for me.
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Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.
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Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.
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If you're an old pro, you know how well you're doing when you're doing it, and your inner government spanks you if you're not doing well.
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A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.
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I've had great success being a total idiot.
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The young man who's had the Guggenheim fortune behind him all his life - he can hire all the authorities on the subject to teach him how to do a monologue, but he's never going to have the right stuff to pull it off. If he doesn't walk out onstage needing to walk out there, he doesn't have a dream of doing well.
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If I found the cure for dystrophy tomorrow, I would do a telethon in four weeks for acute pain that in this country is a bigger problem than cancer, heart, sickle cell, anemia, name it. It is - it's hitting 70 million Americans.
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Comedy is a man in trouble. And without it, there's no humor.
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I never tell an audience what they can expect. I never have and I never will. I'm an entertainer for 75 years.
Jerry Lewis
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I turned down 'Some Like It Hot.' See how smart I am? I felt I couldn't bring anything funny to it. The outfit was funny. I don't need to compete with the wardrobe.
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When I hit around 65, 66, I started to feel tremendous worth and incredible personal esteem. I was becoming very cognisant of my contribution to the American spirit of helping your fellow man and all of the good stuff.
Jerry Lewis
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I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.
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Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.
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I don't want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.
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This is the pain pacemaker. I've got a battery under my skin. From that battery are two electrodes that go into the spine where they cut bone away to accommodate it. Now I put on the power here. If I have the pain, the stimulator starts. It's tingling, like when your foot falls asleep, you know?
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It'll keep you alive for another 10 years if you get yourself a laugh once a day: either provoke it, or look around in the wildest laboratory in the world, the public.
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When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, 'Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?' He answered, 'If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.
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If I've learned anything in the more than 50 years that I've led MDA, it's that the generosity of the American people knows no bounds. I'm sure that with their fellow citizens in such dire need, they'll dig deep and do everything they can to help. I'm hopeful that many people will be willing to make two phone calls and donate to both causes.
Jerry Lewis
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I have a loyalty that runs in my bloodstream, when I lock into someone or something, you can't get me away from it because I commit that thoroughly. That's in friendship, that's a deal, that's a commitment. Don't give me paper - I can get the same lawyer who drew it up to break it. But if you shake my hand, that's for life.
Jerry Lewis