Don Rickles (1926–2017) was a legendary American comedian and actor known for his unparalleled skill in insult comedy. Born in New York City, Rickles gained fame for his sharp wit, rapid-fire delivery, and fearless roasting of audience members and celebrities alike.

Often referred to as “Mr. Warmth,” Rickles’ comedic style combined playful mockery with a genuine affection for his targets, earning him the respect and admiration of both his peers and audiences. He became a fixture in Las Vegas showrooms and late-night television, captivating audiences with his unscripted, improvisational humor.

Beyond his stand-up career, Rickles appeared in numerous films and television shows, showcasing his comedic talent in both comedic and dramatic roles. His influence on the comedy landscape is undeniable, with his fearless approach to humor and quick wit setting a standard for generations of comedians to come. Don Rickles’ legacy as the ultimate insult comic endures as a testament to his unparalleled comedic genius.

Don Rickles Quotes

1. “You throw your best punch, otherwise don’t do it.”
— Don Rickles

2. “Italians are fantastic people, really. They can work you over in an alley while singing an opera.”
— Don Rickles

3. “I take pride in being very unique in what I do. Nobody else can do what I do and I don’t mean to say that egotistically, it’s just something in my personality.”
— Don Rickles

4. “When you stand alone and sell yourself, you can’t please everyone. But when you’re different, you can last.”
— Don Rickles

5. “Whatever you do to gain success, you have to hang in there and hope good things happen. Always think positive.”
— Don Rickles

6. “It’s very sweet to have people say nice things about you, and I always accept that.”
— Don Rickles

7. “They always use the word ‘insult’ with me, but I don’t hurt anybody. I wouldn’t be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities.”
— Don Rickles

8. “I’ve got an accountant who’s been with me forty years. If he makes a mistake, he dies.”
— Don Rickles

9. “Struggling is hard because you never know what’s at the end of the tunnel.”
— Don Rickles

10. “Showbiz is great if you’re successful.”
— Don Rickles

11. “You know what’s funny to me? Attitude.”
— Don Rickles

12. “I used to play golf. I wanted to be a better player, but after a while I realized I’d always stink. And that’s when I really started to enjoy the game.”
— Don Rickles

13. “Room service is great if you want to pay $500 for a club sandwich.”
— Don Rickles

14. “If I were to insult people and mean it, that wouldn’t be funny.”
— Don Rickles

15. “Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.”
— Don Rickles

16. “I don’t do impressions.”
— Don Rickles

17. “My whole act is off the top of my head.”
— Don Rickles

18. “I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He’d just pick up the couch and walk out of the room.”
— Don Rickles

19. “Asians are nice people, but they burn a lot of shirts.”
— Don Rickles

20. “I’ve never walked off stage and said, I shouldn’t have done that. Because when you do what I do, you’re like a fighter. You throw the right hand and say, That’s what got me to this dance. You can’t have doubt. If you have doubt, there’s no show.”
— Don Rickles

21. “You’ve got to be able to sell yourself.”
— Don Rickles

22. “People think being in your seventies means sitting around in a chair with a blanket over your legs, drooling.”
— Don Rickles

23. “I grew up in an Orthodox family, as I grew older, I became Conservative and that’s how it ended up. But I’ve developed that Jewish feel to my act from my surroundings and my family.”
— Don Rickles

24. “I’m very shy so I became very outgoing to protect my shyness.”
— Don Rickles

25. “Some people say funny things, but I say things funny.”
— Don Rickles

26. “You can’t study comedy; it’s within you. It’s a personality. My humor is an attitude.”
— Don Rickles

27. “Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.”
— Don Rickles

28. “Women were afraid of me, they were scared to death. But I always say be yourself, if you’re funny then let your sense of humor go there. I mean there’s no sense hiding what you feel.”
— Don Rickles

29. “It takes many years to be a great comedian.”
— Don Rickles

30. “Eddie Fisher married to Elizabeth Taylor is like me trying to wash the Empire State Building with a bar of soap.”
— Don Rickles

31. “Every night when I go out on stage, there’s always one nagging fear in the back of my mind. I’m always afraid that somewhere out there, there is one person in the audience that I’m not going to offend!”
— Don Rickles

32. “I don’t feel an obligation to give everyone a hard time, but when they’re important people, it’s fun.”
— Don Rickles

33. “I cannot tell a joke. But I can do a situation, that it becomes a joke.”
— Don Rickles

34. “I’ve never been mean-spirited, in my opinion. I never did anything below the belt.”
— Don Rickles

35. “Political correctness? In my humor, I never talk about politics. I was never much into all that.”
— Don Rickles

36. “An insult comic is the title I was given. What I do is exaggeration. I make fun of people, at life, of myself and my surroundings.”
— Don Rickles

37. “I would describe myself as a guy that’s very normal but has the tendency to rib people, but never in a mean-spirited way.”
— Don Rickles

38. “I don’t care if the average guy on the street really knows what I’m like, as long as he knows I’m not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I’m really like. That’s what’s important.”
— Don Rickles

39. “When I first went to Vegas, there were just high-rollers and gamblers and the wise guys treated you great.”
— Don Rickles

40. “Some people call me a legend and the last of the greats, and I appreciate it.”
— Don Rickles

41. “I always rib people, but nobody ever gives me a hard time. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re afraid of what I might say. There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.”
— Don Rickles

42. “I was a mother’s boy.”
— Don Rickles

43. “I have no idea what I’m going to say when I stand up to give a toast. But I do know that anything I say I find funny.”
— Don Rickles

44. “To my knowledge, I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.”
— Don Rickles

45. “Yeah, I make fun of blacks, and why not? I’m not a black.”
— Don Rickles

46. “It’s tough having the last name Rickles. Luckily, my kids handled it great.”
— Don Rickles

47. “The man I adored, and miss him terribly, was Johnny Carson.”
— Don Rickles

48. “Who picks your clothes – Stevie Wonder?”
— Don Rickles

49. “When I’m onstage, I’m acting.”
— Don Rickles

50. “When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don’t mind, but he has it in his back pocket.”
— Don Rickles

51. “Smartphones. Who cares? Smartphones. I only have dummy phones.”
— Don Rickles

52. “I never went out looking for glory.”
— Don Rickles

53. “I don’t really tell a joke, I react to situations. The whole thing is just looking at somebody and showing all our weaknesses and exaggerating them, and that’s how it becomes funny.”
— Don Rickles

54. “I’m always watching films. The Academy pretty much sends me every film that’s ever been done. I enjoy watching them, especially with the people I know.”
— Don Rickles

55. “I’ve never gambled a dime. Never, in all my years in Vegas.”
— Don Rickles

56. “I was sitting in the toilet and I was by myself. I was tired of playing with the roller, so I said I’d better write a book.”
— Don Rickles

57. “I’d like to think my performance is today. I never try to – it’s so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.”
— Don Rickles

58. “In the 45 years I’ve worked in casinos, I dreamed of being honored by an organization like the American Gaming Association, especially since I don’t even have a hunting license.”
— Don Rickles

59. “Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke, one bit of humor.”
— Don Rickles

60. “The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor.”
— Don Rickles

61. “I have my own gym. When you do jokes and they sell, you get a gym.”
— Don Rickles

62. “When you do see me, you’ll get the idea from when you see me that it’s all off the top of my head. A lot of it is a beginning, middle and the end. But it’s different every night. I have a lot of jokes in my back pocket I’ve said over the years.”
— Don Rickles

63. “When I got out of high school, I wanted to be an actor but was getting a lot of rejections. I was getting rejected by life. My mother, God rest her soul, told me not to quit.”
— Don Rickles

64. “I still have drive, but everything is relative.”
— Don Rickles

65. “I can sit all day in a comfortable chair and watch ball games, but I don’t need a blanket.”
— Don Rickles

66. “You lose your energy, you lose that excitement and it gets the audience up.”
— Don Rickles

67. “I was always the guy – out of insecurities, I was always making fun, even as a kid.”
— Don Rickles

68. “My style is my personality. It’s always been that way. Being a wiseguy and having fun. It’s always been that way for me, when I was in high school, and in the Navy. It’s not something I rehearse.”
— Don Rickles

69. “To me, the stand up part in my life is great. I know I can do that. When I get an acting chance, I’m really thrilled.”
— Don Rickles

70. “The thing I love about Vegas is that it’s a melting pot. It’s like working Ellis Island.”
— Don Rickles

71. “Harry is a black man, and I’m a white man. We obviously come from different backgrounds, but we stand together on this stage as brothers. And as a brother, I must say these race riots are terrible. It’s awful how stores are being looted. The burning, the rioting, the stealing. But if, God forbid, it does happen again – and I pray it doesn’t – all I can say is, ‘Harry, I could use a couch and a couple of end tables.”
— Don Rickles

72. “I do situations and make fun of authority and life.”
— Don Rickles

73. “Everything I’ve ever done in my whole career, people might not know, I’ve never written anything down on paper.”
— Don Rickles

74. “When you’re 18, you’re just so busy being scared and having fun – a crazy mixture – that you never thought of dying.”
— Don Rickles

75. “The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now.”
— Don Rickles

76. “I’ve never had guys sit me down and say this is what you’ve got to do. It’s my personality that makes me one of a kind, and I believe that.”
— Don Rickles

77. “I have to have energy because I have a lot of expenses. A couple of cars, couple of dogs and a big estate.”
— Don Rickles

78. “Everything I do on stage, I made up in saloons. I started doing it in front of people, and that became my performance. I never had writers.”
— Don Rickles

79. “Well, I call myself an actor. I always wanted to be one.”
— Don Rickles

80. “I have a problem, if the light goes on on TV and it blinks midnight, I don’t know how to fix it.”
— Don Rickles