Dick Van Dyke

“In my seventies, I exercised to stay ambulatory. In my eighties, I exercise to avoid assisted living.”

“I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now!”

“I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called 'My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.' A publisher came to me and said, 'Write a book,' so I did. I...”

“One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. A...”

“My son Barry, of course, has been on from the beginning. And his son Shane is playing now a med student regularly on the show. And at one point or another, I've had all four of his kids on t...”

“I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I...”

“When I auditioned for 'Bye Bye Birdie' on Broadway, Gower Champion said, 'You've got the job!' I said, 'Mr. Champion, I can't dance.' He said, 'We'll teach you what you need to know.'”

“Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him.”

“For some reason, as time gets short in life, wasting time escaping through entertainment bothers me.”

“I got into a Broadway show before I ever sang and danced. I learned how after I got in the show.”

“When I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me.”

“When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things ou...”

“I was always in show business but in many ways was not really of show business. I didn't move in show business circles, particularly, still don't do it.”

“My wife didn't like Hollywood or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner - cooked by Frank Sinatra.”

“I was 5 years old when the stock market crashed; I lost everything.”

“I pay attention to the news. I take the 'New York Times.' I do the Saturday crossword.”

“I have a beautiful, young wife who sings and dances, so there's a lot of duetting going on at my house.”

“They did ask me to do 'Dancing With The Stars;' I said I can do one show, but on that show you have to come up with a new number every week, and I told them that I think I'm a little past th...”

“No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago.”

“I get little kids who recognize me from 'Mary Poppins,' and it just delights me because it's our third generation.”