Bob Newhart, born in 1929, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer known for his unique deadpan delivery and brilliant comedic timing. Rising to prominence in the 1960s with his iconic album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” which won him multiple Grammy Awards, Newhart quickly became one of the most celebrated comedians of his time.

He transitioned seamlessly into television with “The Bob Newhart Show” in the 1970s, where he played psychologist Dr. Robert Hartley, showcasing his understated humor and impeccable comedic chops. The show’s success was followed by another hit sitcom, “Newhart,” in the 1980s.

Newhart’s enduring appeal lies in his ability to find humor in the mundane and deliver it with a subtle yet effective style. Throughout his career, he has remained a beloved figure in comedy, admired for his wit, intelligence, and enduring contributions to the art form.

Bob Newhart Quotes

1. “I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.”
— Bob Newhart

2. “Don’t be silly and don’t waste your time.”
— Bob Newhart

3. “I was never a Certified Public Accountant. I just had a degree in accounting. It would require passing a test, which I would not have been able to do.”
— Bob Newhart

4. “The only way to survive is to have a sense of humour.”
— Bob Newhart

5. “Television series are like the stock market. There’s room for bears and bulls but no room for pigs.”
— Bob Newhart

6. “Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.”
— Bob Newhart

7. “All I can say about life is, ‘Oh God, enjoy it!’”
— Bob Newhart

8. “One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don’t show fear.”
— Bob Newhart

9. “I didn’t need the elf outfit to play an elf; I could just play an elf.”
— Bob Newhart

10. “I feel more comfortable in comedy.”
— Bob Newhart

11. “You should have a value system. You can win if you stick with your value system.”
— Bob Newhart

12. “You shouldn’t get too close to the truth, because then maybe you stop being funny.”
— Bob Newhart

13. “Doormen are kind of invisible, people don’t know their names. They just say, Thank you, or Good morning. I’d never thought about doormen before. They’re a vanishing breed. More electronic doors are being introduced.”
— Bob Newhart

14. “There are a lot of questions I keep asking myself about why I do comedy. I guess I laugh to keep from crying. And I guess if you ever get me crying, I might not stop. This is the way I look at tragedy or else I’ll cry.”
— Bob Newhart

15. “People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail.”
— Bob Newhart

16. “The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don’t we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let’s laugh about it.”
— Bob Newhart

17. “The best advice I could give someone trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.”
— Bob Newhart

18. “I’m most proud of the longevity of my marriage, my kids, and my grandchildren. If you don’t have that, you really don’t have very much.”
— Bob Newhart

19. “I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that. Don’t rush into adulthood, it isn’t all that much fun.”
— Bob Newhart

20. “I was not influenced by Jack Benny, and people have remarked on my timing and Jack’s timing, but I don’t think you can teach timing. It’s something you hear in your head.”
— Bob Newhart

21. “I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though youre poking fun at someone or something, theres still an affection for it.”
— Bob Newhart

22. “There’s a lot of cynicism. Let’s really enjoy Christmas, with all that’s going on in the world.”
— Bob Newhart

23. “I don’t want to find the secret. I’m afraid all the joy will go out of it if I find the secret.”
— Bob Newhart

24. “I worked in accounting for two and a half years, realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and decided I was just going to give comedy a try.”
— Bob Newhart

25. “This stammer got me a home in Beverly Hills, and I’m not about to screw with it now.”
— Bob Newhart

26. “More and more, as I get older, people come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for all the laughter.’ And my standard answer is, ‘It was my pleasure.’ But that’s the truth.”
— Bob Newhart

27. “I don’t have a stack of scripts.”
— Bob Newhart

28. “One of the first things that you learn as a stand-up is, you’re the boss. It’s your stage, and don’t screw with me because I’ll make you look bad, which I had to do, because you wind up with drunks and loud people.”
— Bob Newhart

29. “Humor’s a weapon if you want to make it one.”
— Bob Newhart

30. “I love portraying the totally indifferent person.”
— Bob Newhart

31. “Cell phones have gotten so small, you can’t tell who’s a cell phone user and who’s a schizophrenic.”
— Bob Newhart

32. “I think one reason for a successful marriage is laughter. I think laughter gets you through the rough moments in a marriage.”
— Bob Newhart

33. “Don’t ever have two dogs. That way you won’t know which one to blame.”
— Bob Newhart

34. “There’s gratification in making somebody laugh. It’s a wonderful sound. I find myself, to this day, doing it, wanting to make people laugh.”
— Bob Newhart

35. “Marriage and fatherhood heighten the disillusion that we all think we are born handy. We confidently believe that we can fix things around the house, as if it’s part of the collective brain that was further enhanced by eighth-grade shop class.”
— Bob Newhart

36. “I really don’t know what makes a comedian. I think it’s a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.”
— Bob Newhart

37. “It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.”
— Bob Newhart

38. “Because of the spin-meisters and the focus groups and the way politics is run now. It’s run by polls and focus groups. So it’s even more true today, I think, than it was some 40 years ago.”
— Bob Newhart

39. “But I really believe that if you have the ability, there is an obligation to make people laugh.”
— Bob Newhart

40. “The reason I’m a psychologist is based in part on my telephone routines. Much of my humor comes out of reaction to what other people are saying. A psychologist is a man who listens, who is sympathetic.”
— Bob Newhart

41. “Women are more emotional. They do get flustered. Which is not to say that men are better than they. It’s simply the way it is.”
— Bob Newhart

42. “The only thing I have never done is a Broadway play. I’m not sure I have the discipline necessary to do a Broadway play. I know it holds a fascination for certain actors.”
— Bob Newhart

43. “Funny is funny is funny.”
— Bob Newhart

44. “Sometimes you forget you’re famous. You wonder, Why is that person staring at me?”
— Bob Newhart

45. “It was a decision to work clean. I just prefer to work that way. I have no problem with comedians who don’t work that way. There was a temptation in the early ’70s to reconsider. I decided against it.”
— Bob Newhart

46. “You do a clean show and it’s over and the audience have enjoyed themselves and you’ve enjoyed yourself, and you haven’t had to resort to shock.”
— Bob Newhart

47. “Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn’t afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.”
— Bob Newhart

48. “I’ve been told to speed up my delivery when I perform. But if I lose the stammer, I’m just another slightly amusing accountant.”
— Bob Newhart

49. “I think everyone probably starts out sounding like someone else, but gradually you develop your own sound.”
— Bob Newhart

50. “I don’t have a show anymore. I don’t have a check coming in every week. This is important to me, I got to score a million tonight or it could all be over.”
— Bob Newhart

51. “You never know when you’ll come upon something and it’s going to be fodder for new material.”
— Bob Newhart

52. “I wasn’t much good. When I went into the line on a fake – I would holler ‘I don’t have it!’”
— Bob Newhart

53. “I never had an aversion because I was active in the drama club. If I had that aversion I certainly wouldn’t put myself in the position of being on stage. Of course, in the drama club you’re hiding behind a character.”
— Bob Newhart

54. “As an actor, you generally want to see the other actor’s face.”
— Bob Newhart

55. “I couldn’t play off people that I don’t personally like.”
— Bob Newhart

56. “The giant superstars are people whose talent is so enormous that their death wish can’t destroy it.”
— Bob Newhart

57. “In today’s world, you would call my father mostly unaccessible. I’m not sure that isn’t true of most fathers at that time. He went through the Depression. I don’t know what that would have done to my psyche.”
— Bob Newhart

58. “I’m very open to the up-and-comers.”
— Bob Newhart

59. “Every new routine I have ever written and performed probably occurred extemporaneously. Then after you have fleshed it out and tried it out in front of a number of audiences and it works, you put it down on paper.”
— Bob Newhart

60. “I’ve been a very lucky actor.”
— Bob Newhart

61. “The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit.”
— Bob Newhart

62. “Continuing to do stand-up is always a challenge because the audiences and the environments in which you work very often differ.”
— Bob Newhart

63. “I kind of do it in my head, then I’ll try pieces of it on stage and if it looks promising, I’ll put it together.”
— Bob Newhart

64. “All comedians are, in a way, anarchists. Our job is to make fun of the existing world.”
— Bob Newhart

65. “When I started out in 1960, I thought it might possibly last a couple of years. I never expected it to last 42. I take great satisfaction in that longevity.”
— Bob Newhart

66. “I think there’s a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.”
— Bob Newhart

67. “Well, my career choice made a difference because I never would have met my wife, Jenny. I met her through comedian Buddy Hackett. He set us up on a blind date and then we got married.”
— Bob Newhart

68. “I can’t remember the last live-action, non-animated Christmas movie.”
— Bob Newhart

69. “I still feel thirty, except when I try to run.”
— Bob Newhart

70. “I’ve done more than I thought I was ever going to do. I’ve had a very long and very satisfying career.”
— Bob Newhart

71. “I’ve been married forty-five years. I think laughter is the secret.”
— Bob Newhart

72. “I was influenced by every comedian I ever saw work. That’s the only way you learn how to do it.”
— Bob Newhart

73. “I think there are still words you can’t use in family entertainment that you can use in a sitcom today.”
— Bob Newhart

74. “I don’t know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there’s a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That’s kind of regrettable.”
— Bob Newhart

75. “A collison is what happens when two motorists go after the same pedestrian.”
— Bob Newhart

76. “When you’re going for a joke, you’re stuck out there if it doesn’t work. There’s nowhere to go. You’ve done the drum role and the cymbal clash and you’re out on the end of the plank.”
— Bob Newhart

77. “Well I was much too practical to presume to have a career in comedy.”
— Bob Newhart

78. “Here are some of the towns I played last year: Carmel, Indiana; Hutchinson, Kansas; and Huntsville, Alabama. I even played Peoria. So why not limit my dates to easy-to-reach cities like Toronto, Chicago, and Reno? Easier still, why not just retire?”
— Bob Newhart

79. “I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that.”
— Bob Newhart

80. “The closer you get to understanding humor, the more you begin to lose your sense of humor.”
— Bob Newhart