Billy Crystal quotes

Born
March 14, 1948 Manhattan, New York, U.S.

Occupation
Actor, writer, producer.

Billy Crystal is an American actor, writer, producer, director, comedian, and television host. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s.

Movies
Analyze This (1999)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)

I still don’t love the darkness, though I’ve learned to smile in it a little bit, now and then.
– Billy Crystal

I really could’ve been a good student, but I was always hearing an imaginary audience.
– Billy Crystal

To be good, you need to believe in what you’re doing.
– Billy Crystal

The Academy and the Oscars have been very gracious to me.
– Billy Crystal

I was raised mostly by my mom.
– Billy Crystal

Even when I was in school shows, in elementary school doing plays, I’d always go off book and start improvising.
– Billy Crystal

I never stopped believing in us, and I never felt like I was wanting for anything, except for my father, and that was not going to be.
– Billy Crystal

Gentlemen, start your egos.
– Billy Crystal

One night, I wrote down all the things I was waiting to do with my little granddaughter, and it became a book, ‘I Already Know I Love You.’ It was one of those really lovely things in life.
– Billy Crystal

I’d like to think there is a Heaven, and it starts from the happiest day in your life.
– Billy Crystal

You really have to have some muscle to be on the stage in front of the world.
– Billy Crystal

What life throws at you – you just have to learn how to hit it, which is a baseball metaphor. The ball’s outside, you hit to the right. You don’t let them go by.
– Billy Crystal

My older brother Joel became an art teacher; my brother Rip ultimately became a television producer and singer and actor himself.
– Billy Crystal

I don’t know what I would have done to rebel. I don’t know what I was rebelling against.
– Billy Crystal

I’m a baby. I sleep like a baby – I’m up every two hours. And I think a lot. I worry a lot. I have great nights of no sleep where ideas come.
– Billy Crystal

To this day, with all of these muscle-bound guys, nobody hit the ball further than Mickey Mantle, with his natural strength.
– Billy Crystal

Performing was how I was able to release this pain I had.
– Billy Crystal

As a comedian, you have everything working against you.
– Billy Crystal

A laugh is a weird sound, and when you get a couple thousand people making it at once, it’s really strange. But when I can feel proud of myself for causing it, it’s great.
– Billy Crystal

Dad had a music store, and he’d often bring home comedy albums that I would listen to. I started listening to Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby, and developing taste. They really influenced my style of comedy.
– Billy Crystal

What’s so fascinating and frustrating and great about life is that you’re constantly starting over, all the time, and I love that.
– Billy Crystal

I can’t be funny if my feet don’t feel right.
– Billy Crystal

Change is such hard work.
– Billy Crystal

Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.
– Billy Crystal

My parents always looked like they loved being together. That’s what I took from them, and that’s how my wife and I are. I still feel like we’re dating.
– Billy Crystal

It is great seeing the fruits of your labor. The joy I have in watching my daughters with their kids is great, because they’re doing a wonderful job, and the kids are fantastic.
– Billy Crystal

I pride myself in being able to survive just about any situation on stage now. I can handle pressure.
– Billy Crystal

I have to admit, I was a little bit of a misfit.
– Billy Crystal

That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.
– Billy Crystal

Bambi, to a kid, was scary.
– Billy Crystal

I’m comfortable being old… being black… being Jewish.
– Billy Crystal

Nothing takes the sting out of these tough economic times like watching a bunch of millionaires giving golden statues to each other.
– Billy Crystal

Rehearsals are for gags.
– Billy Crystal

When I’m not thrilled, I get funny.
– Billy Crystal

I never worry that I’ll die in my sleep, because I’m never asleep!
– Billy Crystal

I’m going to go on just living and laughing and loving.
– Billy Crystal

I’d stand on a coffee table, and my cousin Edith would give me dimes, and you put the dimes on your head… And when your forehead was full, show was over.
– Billy Crystal

Believe me, happiness is not ticking off Walter Cronkite.
– Billy Crystal

You don’t want to wait for that aged jockey role.
– Billy Crystal

I think I’ve far exceeded what I ever thought I could possibly do.
– Billy Crystal

Nobody is more truthful when he’s acting than De Niro.
– Billy Crystal

Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar.
– Billy Crystal

I’m almost shocked that I’m still around after all of these years… and always grateful that I get another turn to do something.
– Billy Crystal

When I was about 21 and just about to get out of college at NYU, Vietnam was raging, and I was a frustrated musician for a little bit.
– Billy Crystal