Professionals don't get writer's block. I can always come up with the punch line.

When the war was over and the guys were back to shaving every day, the editor thought the Beetle Bailey strips were hurting their disciplinary efforts to get the guys back to routine.

I was kicked out of The Stars And Stripes twice, and finally got back in.

The frustration of being ordered around by somebody to do something - everyone can relate to that. I think Beetle represents that - the common man caught in that morass of rules and regulations. I don't even think of it as an army strip... it's a world anyone can understand.

I always think that in some way, art is the best tool we have to prepare for death. It's like a sculpture that you can interpret differently every time you look at it.

Death of a Salesman' is a brilliant taxonomy of the spiritual atrophy of mid-twentieth-century white America.

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.

I used to sing at funeral homes for families that didn't have a vocalist. I didn't get paid. I needed to sing.