Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

George Burns Comedian

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Jan 20, 1896
  • Died: Mar 9, 1996

George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, award-winning actor and best-selling writer.

He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century.

When Burns was 79, his career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian in the 1975 film The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.

Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

At my age flowers scare me.

When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.

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

Look to the future, because that is where you'll spend the rest of your life.

I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.

Nice to be here? At my age it's nice to be anywhere.

I spent a year in that town, one Sunday.

I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.

Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman it depends on how much happiness you can handle.

Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything that's down can come up.

I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.

I can't afford to die I'd lose too much money.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

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

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

I would go out with women my age, but there are no women my age.

I smoke ten to fifteen cigars a day. At my age I have to hold on to something.