Dick Cavett Quotes (24 Quotes)


    I don't think anyone ever gets over the surprise of how differently one audience's reaction is from another.

    Every student of comedy should see Dame Edna at least twice.

    There was also evidence of misbehavior backstage, ... Stubbed-out joints, copies of Jack Kerouac, a copy of Ulysses in the detritus of the dressing room.

    As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.

    There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?


    The Nixon administration kept a nasty eye on our show... Cops would come by - often just in time to see the act they wanted to see.

    To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.

    Don't you wish you could have been a little older and kept a diary of all those meetings

    It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.

    That's a nightmare, ... Somebody will point out to the aged widow of some composer that they heard a snatch of (his) song. It can take time.

    Once I left out what I then considered my best line because there was a suspected column rat in the house.

    I eat at this German-Chinese restaurant and the food is delicious. The only problem is that an hour later you're hungry for power.

    If (O. J. Simpson) is acquitted, I will renounce my citizenship. And if I converse with him at a cocktail party, I will say, 'Well, there are so many people here who haven't murdered anyone. I think I'll go talk to them.' I'll also riot.

    They asked how much current music I liked, ... Well, I loved Wilson Pickett. I liked Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw, 'The Alligator Man.' I wondered if there was more music like that. But the fact I had all these people on still surprises me. For some reason, I was accepted by the rock folk. Maybe they understood that they and I were on the same side of the Richard Nixon question.

    Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself.

    Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it's painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it's extremely painful.

    Can you picture yourself at the age 60 doing what you do now?

    With no MTV and fewer tour venues, talk and variety shows were the only place for most people to see some acts, ... I felt like a missionary, bringing them to a primitive people.

    We were doing shows five days a week, so I assigned a guy to pick out the good stuff, ... We lost some shows, but saved hundreds.

    If your parents never had children, chances are... neither will you.

    Show people tend to treat their finances like their dentistry. They assume the man handling it knows what he is doing.

    Cavett also interviews Mick Jagger backstage. If he had on a business suit, it would have been appropriate, ... Then he went on, screeching across the stage with his arms out front. I thought, 'Is that the guy from the London School of Economics' -- which is where he went to school. He is a very, very smart man.

    I'm not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.

    I think I'd be pretty easy to write for.


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