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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I spent a year in that town, one Sunday.

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

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

At my age flowers scare me.

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

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.

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

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

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