Jerry Lewis quotes

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

#Loyalty #Running #Commitment

People say, "How would you like to be remembered?" I don't want to be remembered. Gimme a break. What I want is to hear what's great about me now. Let me hear it! In the box you don't hear these eulogies.
-- Jerry Lewis

#People #Eulogy #Want

I've had great success being a total idiot.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Idiot #Cool Funny #Great Success

Every man's dream is to be able to sink into the arms of a woman without also falling into her hands.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Funny #Dream #Witty

You might as well like yourself; just think about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Thinking #Might #Like You

I get paid for what most kids get punished for.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Kids

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',
-- Jerry Lewis

#Fathers Day #Zoos #Kids

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Baby #Thinking #Machines

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Smart #Hot #Needs

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

#Phones #Years #Two

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

#Hands #Giving #Paper

For those who understand, no explaination is needed...For those who don't, none will do.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Needed

When I was onstage doing the work, adrenaline killed the pain because I never hurt in front of an audience.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Hurt #Pain #Adrenaline

I think the cartoons that they're children are watching, particularly 'The Simpsons,' they're OK. I think that the adult audience is making much too much of the danger that they imply. That's not the case. The danger for children today, honey, is the news. Keep them away from news on television.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Children #Thinking #Cartoon

I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Doors #Common Sense #Instinct

I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Hope #Selfish #Kids

I don't want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Nice #Want #Remembered

Gambling is part of the human condition. I love it. I have the best time gambling. I've been winning fortunes, and I've been losing them.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Winning #Gambling #Losing

Adrenaline is wonderful. It covers pain. It covers dementia. It covers everything.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Pain #Wonderful #Adrenaline

People think I'm against critics because they are negative to my work. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they didn't see the work. I have seen critics print stuff about stuff I cut out of the film before we ran it. So don't tell me about critics.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Cutting #Thinking #People

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Children #Growing Up #Years

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

#Years #Audience #Entertainers

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Government #Wells

People hate me because I am a multifaceted, talented, wealthy, internationally famous genius.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Hate #People #Hatred

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

#Men #Would Be #Needs

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

#Men #Becoming #Fellow Man

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Dream #Men #Stuff

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Laughing #People #Fool

From 1936 on, I have taken more falls than any other 20 comedians put together. From the time I was 21, I've taken them on everything from clay courts to cement to wood floors, coming off pianos, going out a two-story window, landing on Dean, falling into the rough. You do that and you're gonna have problems.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Fall #Taken #Two

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?
-- Jerry Lewis

#Pain #Fall #Cutting

I tell young comics, 'Do you want this badly enough? It's there. But you have to go get it. And if you think I'm going to give you the key to the lock of that door, there is no key, there is no lock, and there is no door.'
-- Jerry Lewis

#Thinking #Keys #Doors

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Years #Laughing #Looks

Postwar America was a very buttoned-up nation. Radio shows were run by censors, Presidents wore hats, ladies wore girdles. We came straight out of the blue - nobody was expecting anything like Martin and Lewis. A sexy guy and a monkey is how some people saw us.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Sexy #Running #America

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.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Country #Pain #Cancer

I really am opinionated, but not for long. I have found myself coming off of what I think of something because the guy I'm talking to makes better sense than I am. I have so many points of view, I can't keep track of 'em, because I talk to too many people... I'm not so opinionated that I won't budge.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Thinking #Views #Talking

Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!
-- Jerry Lewis

#House #Want #Pity

I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Feelings #Comedy

Make film, shoot film, run film. Do something. Make film. Shoot anything.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Running #Film

(The Nutty Professor) was a labor of love. It was a total film. It was the most productive, creative work of my life.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Creative #Film #Professors

I have nothing against women. As a matter of fact there's something about them that I love, but I just can't put my finger on it.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Women #Matter #Facts

The doc told me I had a dual personality. Then he lays an 82 dollar bill on me, so I give him 41 bucks and say, 'Get the other 41 bucks from the other guy.'
-- Jerry Lewis

#Giving #Personality #Guy

I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.
-- Jerry Lewis

#Country #Brain #Critics