Dick Cavett quote: "I would not ever try to be a show intellectual, which I was accused of doing a while on ABC. I thought you were supposed to read the guests' books."

I have a feeling that about 90% of my life has been shaped by my voice, both as an embarrassment and...
DICK CAVETT

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

The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never fe...
DICK CAVETT

The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - i...
DICK CAVETT

It is a rare person who wants to hear want he doesn't want to hear.
DICK CAVETT

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

My IQ is somewhere between Spiro Agnew's and Albert Einstein's.
DICK CAVETT

Do freshman philosophy classes nowadays debate updated versions of the age-old questions? Like, how ...
DICK CAVETT

Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little bette...
DICK CAVETT

Depression - it falls into that small category of things like combat that, if you haven't been i...
DICK CAVETT

It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer's life that I met him, and a sort of water-treadin...
DICK CAVETT

Coming up through the ranks of any calling can be rough, but that battered soul who survives the ear...
DICK CAVETT

I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinenc...
DICK CAVETT

I find most 'sacred music' pretty dismal.
DICK CAVETT

When I was a kid in Nebraska, a cantankerous farmer, known for plinking with his '22 at passing ...
DICK CAVETT

Show people tend to treat their finances like their dentistry. They assume the people who handle it ...
DICK CAVETT

Show people tend to treat their finances like their dentistry. They assume the man handling it knows...
DICK CAVETT

Home schooling as an idea is on a par with home dentistry.
DICK CAVETT

In the main, ghosts are said to be forlorn and generally miserable, if not downright depressed. The ...
DICK CAVETT

All three of my parents - I also had a stepmother - were teachers, and my dad taught high school, an...
DICK CAVETT

I like when the ice gets thin, the going gets rough, the guests get edgy.
DICK CAVETT

Theres so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
DICK CAVETT

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

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

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
DICK CAVETT

A biggest mistake I made when I started doing a talk show was I thought you had to read the books.
DICK CAVETT

History is not reassuring on the subject of the longevity of seemingly lasting great nations, is it?
DICK CAVETT

I feel sorry for the poor kids whose parents feel they're qualified to teach them at home. Of co...
DICK CAVETT

Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the ...
DICK CAVETT

I guess the best advice I ever got or anyone could get for doing a talk show, though it has not been...
DICK CAVETT

Anything seen on TV is, in a subtle and sinister sense, thereby endorsed.
DICK CAVETT

I have a disturbing problem with losing things. My vulnerability to loss-distress could properly be ...
DICK CAVETT

Great humorists are great insulters.
DICK CAVETT

Commercials are not the only exposure that obesity gets on TV. It is by no means a rarity on the won...
DICK CAVETT

It was well after college that I learned about depression. I got my first job for Jack Paar. I reali...
DICK CAVETT

Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment o...
DICK CAVETT

Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation.
DICK CAVETT

I'm sure I've all but lost friends by maintaining that, despite their love for it, I always ...
DICK CAVETT

The Nixon administration kept a nasty eye on our show, ... Cops would come by — often just in time...
DICK CAVETT

[With no MTV and fewer tour venues,] talk and variety shows were the only place for most people to s...
DICK CAVETT

That was a real contribution to television, ... It was pointed out to me after the show by a terribl...
DICK CAVETT

I was just talking to someone who is technically versed and he was amazed at the quality,
DICK CAVETT

Well, it saved her a lot of muddy shoes,
DICK CAVETT

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

She was wonderful, a very moving performer,
DICK CAVETT

They asked how much current music I liked, ... Well, I loved Wilson Pickett. I liked [Cajun fiddler]...
DICK CAVETT

I have a long list of things that make me mad.
DICK CAVETT

Obviously those who burn to be professional jesters mean that they want to be successful comedians. ...
DICK CAVETT

It takes a certain amount of guts to go to your class reunions.
DICK CAVETT

I felt bad when George Bush was booed. But only briefly. My sympathy for that man has a half-life of...
DICK CAVETT

The Nixon administration kept a nasty eye on our show, ... Cops would come by often just in time ...
DICK CAVETT

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either
DICK CAVETT

It's fun for me to go on other folks' talk shows. When you've endured the ups and downs ...
DICK CAVETT

A grown man, weeping, is a tough thing to see.
DICK CAVETT

There was also evidence of misbehavior backstage, ... Stubbed-out joints, copies of Jack Kerouac, a ...
DICK CAVETT

The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I...
DICK CAVETT

I think I have many spenglerian moods about the country, and that some day people will look back and...
DICK CAVETT

Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why no...
DICK CAVETT

Really? Going on stage with a cane and moving the way you do?
DICK CAVETT

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

I eat at this German-Chinese restaurant and the food is delicious. The only problem is that an hour ...
DICK CAVETT

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

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

I watched one of the Lennon programs yesterday,
DICK CAVETT

Why are people afraid of ghosts? 'Ooh, no, I wouldn't want to see one! I'd be too scared...
DICK CAVETT

Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance,...
DICK CAVETT

Unpleasant reading on the subject of anger tells us that there's not really anything wrong with ...
DICK CAVETT

I don't feel old. I feel like a young man that has something wrong with him.
DICK CAVETT

Nobody is going to try to confiscate guns, although some Web sites know better: President Obama, the...
DICK CAVETT

Comedians are sometimes resentful of their writers. Probably because it's hard for giant egos to...
DICK CAVETT

Teaching is an art and a profession requiring years of training.
DICK CAVETT

I'm the only talk show host, I think, if there's such a category in, what's called, the ...
DICK CAVETT

It's no fun being a specimen.
DICK CAVETT

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

Therapists need to give a depressed patient support and direction.
DICK CAVETT

I have never been converted to or even had much interest in spiritualism, occultism, Swedenborgianis...
DICK CAVETT

I'm not freakishly short. I had, on my show, used shortness as a joke subject; it didn't rea...
DICK CAVETT

And then it suddenly hit me.
DICK CAVETT

A superficial knowledge is not enough. It must be a knowledge capable of analyzing a situation quick...
CAVETT ROBERT

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, g...
CAVETT ROBERT

Any man who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved has already defined his own limitatio...
CAVETT ROBERT

When it's foggy in the pulpit it's cloudy in the pew.
CAVETT ROBERT

Three billion people on the face of the earth go to bed hungry every night, but four billion people ...
CAVETT ROBERT

Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has ...
CAVETT ROBERT

Any person who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved, has already defined his own limit...
CAVETT ROBERT

When it's foggy in the pulpit it's cloudy in the pew.
CAVETT ROBERT

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.
CAVETT ROBERT

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.
CAVETT ROBERT

If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one.
CAVETT ROBERT

Any man who selects a goal in life which can be fully acheived has already defined his own limitatio...
CAVETT ROBERT

If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one.
CAVETT ROBERT

Any person who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved, has already defined his own limit...
CAVETT ROBERT

Any man who selects a goal in life which can be fully achieved has already defined his own limitat...
CAVETT ROBERT

Anybody who thinks that getting a communication from a voter in your district is spam - that guy is ...
DICK MORRIS

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship b...
DICK GREGORY

I had no blood relatives till I made some.
ANDY DICK

It works much like a marriage, an old marriage. You've got to work on it.
DICK SMOTHERS

We learned a verse of this and that and we were having fun with the songs. Tommy would make up stori...
DICK SMOTHERS

Our shows today are better and funnier than they've ever been.
DICK SMOTHERS

Folk music was out there. Clubs were springing up and they were hot with the college kids.
DICK SMOTHERS

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd h...
DICK GREGORY

Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervis...
DICK ARMEY

Straight people say, 'You know you're just gay,' and gay people say, 'You know you&#...
ANDY DICK

We've recognized that Twitter is the second screen for TV, and TV is more fun with Twitter. Ther...
DICK COSTOLO

There is a no-man's land in our politics: on the one hand, bounded by what we know to be true, a...
DICK MORRIS

The British Government and the Irish Government have accepted very clearly the Mitchell Report.
DICK SPRING

Well, I'm using a cane, so what? So what if they shot me sitting in a wheelchair? That's lif...
DICK CLARK

It's real good to be back with you again this year.
DICK CLARK

If you want to stay young-looking, pick your parents very carefully.
DICK CLARK

I don't set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.
DICK CLARK

You hear entertainers all the time, saying, 'If I couldn't get paid for this, I'd do it ...
DICK GREGORY

My healthcare plan puts more money into average families' pockets than the Bush tax cuts... He&#...
DICK GEPHARDT

My son now is 22 months old, he's been playing since he was 12 months old and he gets standing o...
DICK DALE

These are men and women who are willing to risk their lives in defense of their country. And the fac...
DICK DURBIN

My top three were Jim Brown, Wilt Chamberlain and Bo Jackson.
DICK SCHAAP

We all join the President in applauding the sacrifices made by our brave men and women in uniform. B...
DICK DURBIN

Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.
DICK FRANCIS

If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much and winning is not very exciting.
DICK VERMEIL

Losing is a part of winning.
DICK MUNRO

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law.
DICK CLARK

I don't set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.
DICK CLARK

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bil...
DICK GREGORY

You cannot go ahead while you are getting even.
DICK ARMEY

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.
DICK ARMEY

When you're a lawyer, you expect your client to lie to you, but not when he is the president.
DICK HOUSER

And we love to dance -- especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you...
DICK GREGORY

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.
DICK GREGORY

If I was smart enough to be a doctor, I'd be a doctor. I ain't, so I'm a football player.
DICK BUTKUS

I worked hard at becoming a professional football player, just like society says you should. It said...
DICK BUTKUS

I want to be recognized as the best-no doubt about it. When they say all-pro middle linebacker, I wa...
DICK BUTKUS

Few people get to earn a living at what they like to do and there are hazards in any profession. Foo...
DICK BUTKUS

I wouldn't ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important
DICK BUTKUS

I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a ...
DICK MARTIN

You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.
DICK ARMEY

I wouldn't mind paying taxes -- if I knew they were going to a friendly country.
DICK GREGORY

Detective Jeremy Fisk of the NYPD Intelligence Division hated upstate New York. Hated the whole idea...
DICK WOLF

I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be ...
DICK MARTIN

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?
DICK CLARK

Also, I am driven by a wonderful muse called alimony.
DICK SCHAAP

I almost had to have my leg amputated because of an infection.
DICK DALE

Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creati...
DICK DALE

When I first played the guitar without plugging it into an amplifier, the people at Fender were blow...
DICK DALE

Immigration reform is a must, an amnesty. So that's my position. I've been pushing that one ...
DICK MOUNTJOY

The Democratic Party opposes tax cuts but it cannot say so publicly. Thus, it is forced to support t...
DICK MORRIS

One of the things that amazes me about Twitter is the way it utterly eradicates artificial barriers ...
DICK COSTOLO

'Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the posi...
DICK MORRIS

We're going to have a tax cut. Today's American family is overtaxed at all levels.
DICK ARMEY

No, I've always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think o...
DICK CHENEY

If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 1...
DICK THORNBURGH

In 1988, as an unknown candidate, totally unknown, I won Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, won ...
DICK GEPHARDT

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, v...
DICK SCHAAP

Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose.
DICK SCHAAP

There are all kinds of addictions, and I've got every single one. If you set me in front of anyt...
ANDY DICK

Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that Afric...
DICK GREGORY

There's a saying. If you want someone to love you forever, buy a dog, feed it and keep it around...
DICK DALE

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own de...
DICK DURBIN

No candidate can win a presidential race advocating gay marriage and opposing the military action in...
DICK MORRIS

I have a spiritual advisor I call up, when I just feel lost. Lately, I've been talking to God. I...
ANDY DICK

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after d...
DICK GREGORY

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters, boxing and horse racing, h...
DICK SCHAAP

You can't fall back on the private sector and say, 'You take care of the nation's bankin...
DICK CHENEY

People with high blood pressure, diabetes - those are conditions brought about by life style. If you...
DICK GREGORY

The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that require...
DICK CHENEY

The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regi...
DICK CHENEY

If you're going to go increase taxes on small businesses, you're going to slow down the exte...
DICK CHENEY

Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, compreh...
DICK CHENEY

I think we need to significantly reduce the regulatory burden on the private sector. The Obama admin...
DICK CHENEY

Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.
DICK CHENEY

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.
DICK CHENEY

When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying ...
DICK CHENEY

I was convinced that eventually I would die of heart disease, that we'd run out of time and out ...
DICK CHENEY

There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gatheri...
DICK CHENEY

Direct threats require decisive action.
DICK CHENEY

The relevance for 9/11 is that what 9/11 marked was the beginning of a struggle in which the terrori...
DICK CHENEY

I think the key that happened on 9/11 is we went from considering terrorist attacks as a law enforce...
DICK CHENEY

I am a deficit hawk.
DICK CHENEY

We've gotten a long way on missile defense. We know how to do it. We know how to take down incom...
DICK CHENEY

I worked for George Bush. I'm proud to have worked for him. I think that a lot of the most contr...
DICK CHENEY

I've been extraordinarily fortunate that I've been able to go live a very active, stressful ...
DICK CHENEY

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who k...
DICK GREGORY

There is a limit on how much information you can keep bottled up.
DICK GREGORY

From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being s...
DICK CHENEY

It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes t...
DICK DURBIN

I kept having chills. This was in the middle of the summer and I was wearing a sheepskin jacket and ...
DICK YORK

Now here's what I'm saying: I've always believed that every other month we hear about co...
DICK GREGORY

I was raised in a working class family of Baptist faith, and I went to college on a church scholarsh...
DICK GEPHARDT

For 20 years I've been screaming at these guitar companies, saying, 'It's abnormal to pu...
DICK DALE

There was a casting couch in his office. His office was all in white. Behind the desk were his Oscar...
BERNARD DICK

It's a resource for our students in our film courses. And when we do these series for the community,...
BERNARD DICK

We have a very fine resource here.
BERNARD DICK

I wanted a mix of 'B' films and first-class films, because I don't look down my nose at 'B' films. W...
BERNARD DICK

I don't know how many colleges would have a [film] collection of one particular studio.
BERNARD DICK

I went over his notes to 'All the King's Men,' and he sounds like a college professor, talking about...
BERNARD DICK

Gene Krupa was my big hero, and I used to play on my mother's flour cans and sugar cans with the...
DICK DALE

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the ...
DICK GREGORY

It felt good because they've murdered us for the last two years.
ANDY DICK

The best advice he ever gave me was to keep it real, keep it simple, ... He was a big believer in no...
ANDY DICK

Maybe it's just because it's so damn cold there, ... You find humor in everything, 'cause the climat...
ANDY DICK

I don't even remember what I did in that movie, because I did it so long ago, ... I think I'm a craz...
ANDY DICK

The new movie I'm working on right now is very autobiographical. It's about a television actor who d...
ANDY DICK

I would not ever try to be a show intellectual, which I was accused of doing a while on ABC. I thought you were supposed to read the guests' books.

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Dick Cavett

I would not ever try to be a show intellectual, which I was accused of doing a while on ABC. I thought you were supposed to read the guests' books.

Dick Cavett

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