When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own I was shocked.

Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny but working with him I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre he could be a very funny man to work with always telling jokes and holding court. Of course when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.

I've thought for the last decade or so the only actual place raw truth was seeping through in newspapers was on the Comics Pages. They were able to pull off intelligent social comment pure truths not found elsewhere in the news pages and had the ability to make it all funny entertaining and pertinent.

My Father had a profound influence on me. He was a lunatic.

I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people.

Look I worked with American Republican presidents and Democratic presidents all of them and each of them has shown a deep and profound friendship to Israel you know? I can't remember anybody who was in that sense negative as far as Israel is concerned.

If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.

My parents and librarians along the way taught me about the space between words about the margins where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed in the friendliest way.

If you ask me to summarise our mission I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

Real change isn't found in some new way to think about yourself but in freedom from the need to think about yourself at all.