George Burns

People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them,
a paternity suit.
– George Burns

Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting
hair.
– George Burns

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

By the time you are 80, you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.
– George Burns

Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
– George Burns

It’s hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean
and sex was dirty.
– George Burns

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

And God said: “Let there be Satan, so people don’t blame everything on me. And let there be
lawyers, so people don’t blame everything on Satan.”
– George Burns

If it’s a good script I’ll do it. And if it’s a bad script, and they pay me enough, I’ll do it.
– George Burns

When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.
– George Burns

People are always asking me when I’m going to retire. Why should I? I’ve got it two ways –
I’m still making movies, and I’m a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half price.
– George Burns

I was always taught to respect my elders and I’ve now reached the age when I don’t have
anybody to respect.
– George Burns

Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
– George Burns

Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer
articles to read.
– George Burns

You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you
could do while you’re down there.
– George Burns

If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is
avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.
– George Burns

I was married by a judge – I should have asked for a jury.
– George Burns

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
– George Burns

If it’s a good script I’ll do it. And if it’s a bad script, and they pay me enough, I’ll do it.
– George Burns

For forty years my act consisted of one joke. And then she died.
– George Burns

When I was young I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties I was considered
eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then and I’m labeled senile.
– George Burns

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally,
you forget to pull it down.
– George Burns

I stay away from natural foods. At my age I need all the preservatives I can get.
– George Burns

I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.
– George Burns

I get a standing ovation just standing.
– George Burns

Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my
class for five years.
– George Burns

A married couple that plays cards together is just a fight that hasn’t started yet.
– George Burns

Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh
is a humorist.
– George Burns

This is the sixth book I’ve written, which isn’t bad for a guy who’s only read two.
– George Burns

Bridge is a game that separates the men from the boys. It also separates husbands and
wives.
– George Burns

– Can you play the violin?
– I don’t know. I’ve never tried.
– George Burns

By 93, I had shrunk quite a lot. My car was known as the Phantom Cadillac. People would see
it whizzing by and they would swear there was no driver.
– George Burns

I’m at the age now where just putting my cigar in its holder is a thrill.
– George Burns

If I’d taken my doctor’s advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn’t have lived
to go to his funeral.
– George Burns

Retire? I’m going to stay in show business until I’m the only one left.
– George Burns

Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
– George Burns

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

There will always be a battle between the sexes because men and women want different
things. Men want women and women want men.
– George Burns

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

I can’t afford to die; I’d lose too much money.
– George Burns

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the
two as close together as possible.
– George Burns

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.
– George Burns

Everything that goes up must come down. But there comes a time when not everything
that’s down can come up.
– George Burns

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth
or the fourteenth.
– George Burns

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a
little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house.
– George Burns

I don’t believe in dying. It’s been done. I’m working on a new exit. Besides, I can’t die now –
I’m booked.
– George Burns

Retirement at 65 is ridiculous. When I was 65, I still had pimples.
– George Burns

I look better, feel better, make love better, and I’ll tell you something else: I never lied better.
– George Burns

If I paid $3 or $4 for a cigar, first I’d sleep with it.
– George Burns

Happiness? A good martini, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman. Or a bad woman; it
depends on how much happiness you can handle.
– George Burns

“Money is the root of all evil.” Then we hear, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” What are
they talking about? If money is so evil, shouldn’t it be, “A wise man and his money are soon
parted?” And another thing, how does a fool get money in the first place? I know some fools
who have a lot of money, but they won’t tell me how they got it, and I won’t tell them.
– George Burns

If you live to the age of a hundred, you have it made because very few people die past the
age of a hundred.
– George Burns

I can’t understand why I flunked American history. When I was a kid there was so little of it.
– George Burns

First of all you’ve got to have talent. And then you’ve got to marry her like I did.
– George Burns