“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God’s gift, that’s why we call it the present.”
― Joan Rivers
“I enjoy life when things are happening. I don’t care if it’s good things or bad things. That means you’re alive.”
― Joan Rivers
“Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny. Next. Everyone gets so upset about the wrong things.”
― Joan Rivers
“Part of my act is meant to shake you up. It looks like I’m being funny, but I’m reminding you of other things. Life is tough, darling. Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything; otherwise, we’re going down the tube.”
― Joan Rivers
“I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, ‘Get the hell off my property.’”
― Joan Rivers
“I was not an attractive child. When I didn’t use my Girl Scouts uniform as a uniform, I used it as a tent.”
― Joan Rivers
“I never dwell on what happened. You can’t change it. Move forward. Don’t waste your energy on being angry at something that somebody did six months ago or a year ago. It’s over. Done. Move forward.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’m always shocked when I get an invitation. People are always shocked when they see me at a party.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’m in nobody’s circle, I’ve always been an outsider.”
― Joan Rivers
“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”
― Joan Rivers
“My mother loved entertaining, and I’ve followed suit, so we have big celebrations for New Year, Passover, Thanksgiving and birthdays.”
― Joan Rivers
“It’s feast or famine in showbiz.”
― Joan Rivers
“I had a friend who was a plastic surgeon, so he would do little things. I never had, like, a full thing. So I would go in maybe once every two or three years, and he’d do a little here, a little there; tweak you, like you tweak your car. Then I became the plastic surgery poster girl.”
― Joan Rivers
“People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.”
― Joan Rivers
“I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.”
― Joan Rivers
“I do a lot of lectures on survival. I always say you can’t change what happened, so have a little wallow, feel very sorry for yourself, and then get up and move forward. You can’t change what happened.”
― Joan Rivers
“Acting is my true love. I would like to have been a serious actor, and I plan to in the next life. I’m gonna be Meryl Streep Rivers.”
― Joan Rivers
“You can find my book at your favorite bookstore, and if it isn’t there, find a new favorite.”
― Joan Rivers
“I get butterflies before I go out to say hello at a party.”
― Joan Rivers
“Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.”
― Joan Rivers
“Life is very tough. If you don’t laugh, it’s tough.”
― Joan Rivers
“I could be the Greta Garbo of comedy, very secluded, but Garbo had a man who was beyond rich to support her.”
― Joan Rivers
“What makes me laugh is, of course, the absurd, the horror – anything that upsets me.”
― Joan Rivers
“Diets, like clothes, should be tailored to you.”
― Joan Rivers
“I have no methods; all I do is accept people as they are.”
― Joan Rivers
“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I’ll consider it.”
― Joan Rivers
“I truly think comedy is – being funny is DNA. My dad was a doctor, a wonderful doctor, and people still come up to me today, ‘Your father helped my mother die.’ You know what I’m saying? He made her laugh ’til she died. My father was always very funny.”
― Joan Rivers
“I wish I had a twin, so I could know what I’d look like without plastic surgery.”
― Joan Rivers
“I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.”
― Joan Rivers
“I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was ‘the man goes on top and the woman underneath.’ For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’m Jewish. I don’t work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the floor.”
― Joan Rivers
“Forty for you, sixty for me. And equal partners we will be.”
― Joan Rivers
“We don’t apologize for a joke. We are comics. We are here to make you laugh. If you don’t get it, then don’t watch us.”
― Joan Rivers
“My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on.”
― Joan Rivers
“If God wanted us to bend over he’d put diamonds on the floor.”
― Joan Rivers
“I made so many jokes about poor Russell Crowe, he once knocked on my dressing room door, and told me he wanted to go out on this chat show we were on to laugh with me. Now he’s ruined it. I can’t make another joke about him.”
― Joan Rivers
“I hate old people, I hate children. I think any celebrity that adopts a child from a third world country is a fool.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’m grateful for every day I’m still alive. Everything is still working. I attribute it to eating a lot of processed foods. I think it’s the preservatives that keep me going. That, and I eat as much chocolate as I can get my hands on.”
― Joan Rivers
“My obstetrician was so dumb that when I gave birth he forgot to cut the cord. For a year that kid followed me everywhere. It was like having a dog on a leash.”
― Joan Rivers
“I was a Brownie Scout mother.”
― Joan Rivers
“Both of my parents got to see me host Carson, thank God. That’s all anyone wants: to have their parents see they’re going to be all right in life.”
― Joan Rivers
“I am never honored. My career is hilarious to me. I am either under the radar or over the radar.”
― Joan Rivers
“Trust me, there’s not one night a week I’m not in a theater somewhere. I adore theater, and I go out with friends, so I do have some nights off.”
― Joan Rivers
“Every comedian is furious. Age makes me angry. I’m unhappy at not being able to open packages anymore. I’m angry that libraries have gone. I hate children on planes. I’m very shallow, so they tend to be little things. To be honest, I think I was probably angry the day I was born, you know, about diapers or something.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve learned from my dealings with Johnny Carson that no matter what kind of friendship you think you have with people you’re working with, when the chips are down, it’s all about business.”
― Joan Rivers
“Being Jewish has always been important to me. I now have 6M tattooed on the inside of my left arm. It’s only a half-inch, but every time anyone sees it, they’re reminded of the six million who perished, and so am I.”
― Joan Rivers
“The ideal beauty is a fugitive which is never found.”
― Joan Rivers
“She doesn’t understand the concept of Roman numerals. She thought we just fought in world war eleven.”
― Joan Rivers
“There is not one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl.”
― Joan Rivers
“I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.”
― Joan Rivers
“I have a wonderful psychiatrist that I see maybe once a year, because I don’t need it. It all comes out onstage.”
― Joan Rivers
“What are people going to do? Fire me? I’ve been fired before. Not book me? I’ve been out of work before. I don’t care.”
― Joan Rivers
“I adore my apartment in New York. It was a ballroom that I remade, so it’s like a loft but done by Louis the Fifteenth.”
― Joan Rivers
“I always like a charity with people who don’t speak English because I get them to do all kinds of things around my house.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve learned you don’t always listen to your agents and managers. Sometimes they know nothing.”
― Joan Rivers
“You hear things about certain people. When you hear someone was mean to a limo driver or a wardrobe lady, or someone was rotten to a fan, somewhere in your brain it gets stuck.”
― Joan Rivers
“I will work as hard as I do because I love it.”
― Joan Rivers
“You’ve gotta understand – when you interview someone, it’s not an interrogation. It’s not the Nuremberg Trials.”
― Joan Rivers
“I have no line. If I think it’s funny, it’s funny.”
― Joan Rivers
“Life does not measure up to performing… Performing is perfect.”
― Joan Rivers
“When you whisper about something, it’s too big, and you can’t get it under control and take control of it.”
― Joan Rivers
“I didn’t want to do ‘Fashion Police’ because I thought, ‘This is stupid, this is beneath me, who wants to talk about fashion?’ It has taken off. We are the number one show in England on E! Who knew?”
― Joan Rivers
“My husband wanted to be cremated. I told him I’d scatter his ashes at Neiman Marcus – that way, I’d visit him every day.”
― Joan Rivers
“All my friends are dying. That’s why I always wear black.”
― Joan Rivers
“I am furious about everything.”
― Joan Rivers
“I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.”
― Joan Rivers
“Thank God we’re living in a country where the sky’s the limit, the stores are open late and you can shop in bed thanks to television.”
― Joan Rivers
“A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she’s a tramp.”
― Joan Rivers
“Every television show you go on is a choice.”
― Joan Rivers
“The thing is, I’m happiest when I’m on stage.”
― Joan Rivers
“Our natures are a lot like oil, mix us with anything else, and we strive to swim on top.”
― Joan Rivers
“Never floss with a stranger.”
― Joan Rivers
“Before we make love my husband takes a pain killer.”
― Joan Rivers
“Boy George is all England needs – another queen who can’t dress.”
― Joan Rivers
“Don’t tell your kids you had an easy birth or they won’t respect you. For years I used to wake up my daughter and say, ‘Melissa you ripped me to shreds. Now go back to sleep.’.”
― Joan Rivers
“Elizabeth Taylor has more chins than the Chinese telephone directory.”
― Joan Rivers
“Is Elizabeth Taylor fat? Her favorite food is seconds.”
― Joan Rivers
“It’s so long since I’ve had sex I’ve forgotten who ties up who.”
― Joan Rivers
“My routines come out of total unhappiness. My audiences are my group therapy.”
― Joan Rivers
“It’s been so long since I’ve had sex I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.”
― Joan Rivers
“Yeah, I read history. But it doesn’t make you nice. Hitler read history, too.”
― Joan Rivers
“I don’t excercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.”
― Joan Rivers
“I think I’m in a business where you have to look good, and it’s totally youth-oriented.”
― Joan Rivers
“I was not an attractive child.”
― Joan Rivers
“I hate reality shows that are not reality.”
― Joan Rivers
“If you’re saying the same line 10 times and making it look like you just came up with it, that’s acting.”
― Joan Rivers
“I just love acting.”
― Joan Rivers
“I lived to be on stage, and I’m terrified. Terrified before every show.”
― Joan Rivers
“The worst thing that ever happened to me on stage is someone ran forward to tell me they loved me and projectile vomited all over the stage. It was horrible.”
― Joan Rivers
“I don’t think there’d be a Tina Fey now if I hadn’t tried to look good in the beginning.”
― Joan Rivers
“Put me up against Sarah Silverman and I could take her.”
― Joan Rivers
“I think any celebrity that adopts a child from a third world country is a fool.”
― Joan Rivers
“Comediennes are the lucky ones, because if you’re funny, you can be 125 years old and they will still accept you.”
― Joan Rivers
“I will only praise someone who can’t take anything away from me.”
― Joan Rivers
“I am for anyone that will give me lower taxes, stop all this stupid spending. Whoever promises me that gets this chicken’s vote.”
― Joan Rivers
“I love Katy Perry! She’s very charming.”
― Joan Rivers
“I am a huge ‘Downton Abbey’ fan – huge!”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve learned from doing my own show with Fox that people are not your partners if they’re signing the checks. Whoever signs your paycheck is the boss – no matter what they tell you.”
― Joan Rivers
“Comedy is learning to be funny, and you learn to be funny in small rooms with young audiences.”
― Joan Rivers
“Everyone forgets comedians are actors. There’s no question about it. A Robin Williams cannot say the same line every night for 40 weeks and make it sound fresh unless he’s doing an acting job.”
― Joan Rivers
“I think anyone who’s perfectly happy isn’t particularly funny.”
― Joan Rivers
“Anyone that says looks don’t count is lying. Of course they do. Even babies go to the attractive face. It’s the way humans work.”
― Joan Rivers
“I live very well, but I support a lot of relatives.”
― Joan Rivers
“When I turn down work, I feel guilty, I feel terrible; I don’t know where the next job is going to come from.”
― Joan Rivers
“I love the Internet, and I love that you can say whatever you want.”
― Joan Rivers
“My audiences get younger all the time.”
― Joan Rivers
“I think I was the third person in the world to get a Kindle, and I hated it from the minute I got it.”
― Joan Rivers
“Fat jokes aren’t relevant, but they’re hilarious when you find them.”
― Joan Rivers
“It’s like, God, I’m in my 80s. Nobody, when I die, is going to say, ‘How young?’ They’re going to say she had a great ride.”
― Joan Rivers
“Prince Charles is so funny. So, so funny.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve never thought of it consciously… I say exactly what I think, and very often it’s totally politically incorrect. I get, always, chastised for it. So it’s not shtick. But I think I’m the one who says, ‘The emperor has no clothes.’”
― Joan Rivers
“Nobody wants to hear that you met Harry Truman… I met Harry Truman… But you know what I mean? Nobody’s interested. They want to know you met Rihanna. And that kills me.”
― Joan Rivers
“Show business is – you’re there by somebody’s fluke. And as long as somebody likes you, and the show is going well, you’re fine. I’d do anything. There’s so much I want to do.”
― Joan Rivers
“I just get such a connection from an audience. You play with them. I get mad at them. I yell at them. They yell at me. It’s just fun.”
― Joan Rivers
“Comedy is a very rough beat. It’s no holds barred, as it should be.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’ve always been salaried; I’ve never owned anything. I’ve done very well, lived very well.”
― Joan Rivers
“I could pull my living in and live OK, but I don’t want to live OK. I’m very happy to live in my penthouse, very happy I can pick up a check, very happy to have a great life and be able to spread my wealth a little bit.”
― Joan Rivers
“My eyes opened, and the first thing I thought of when I could put thoughts together was I want to be in show business. Never wanted anything else. I used to sneak in the costume room at my nursery school and smell the costumes.”
― Joan Rivers
“Any comic is a very good actor. Look at Don Rickles. He is saying the same joke every night for 20 years and making it look like he just thought of it.”
― Joan Rivers
“I’m a New York girl. I come out of New York theater.”
― Joan Rivers
“When I am on E! for the ‘Fashion Police,’ I only care about being a critic. It loses me many friends.”
― Joan Rivers
“As comedians, we are all laughing because life is so horrible. Life is so difficult, and I cope with it by making jokes about absolutely everything.”
― Joan Rivers
“My career is as an actress. I am an actress playing a comedienne.”
― Joan Rivers
“Reading should be a pleasure, not a chore.”
― Joan Rivers
“Sure I do a lot of jokes about Anne Frank. But when you do those jokes, it makes people remember what happened to her. That process of bringing her story back doesn’t have to be a serious one. What I say is all nonsense, but it helps to keep her memory alive.”
― Joan Rivers
“I would not want to live if I could not perform. It’s in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.”
― Joan Rivers
“With plastic surgery, the general anesthetic is like a black-velvety sleep, and that’s what death is – without waking up to someone clapping and going, ‘Joan, wake up, it’s all over and you’re looking pretty’.”
― Joan Rivers
“Your child is never not your child. You can be 90 and your mother 120, but your mother is still worried about you.”
― Joan Rivers
“I love Vines. You make this 6.4-second drama, and you can reach 6 million viewer, and make people laugh. I find it so fabulous.”
― Joan Rivers
“I walk on a stage, and I know if it’s been a good show or not. You know when it’s been a good interview. No one has to tell you. You know it. You feel it. You can feel the air. You can feel everything about it when it’s a good show. And you know when you’ve messed up.”
― Joan Rivers
“All my way through college, I worked my way as a window dresser for Lord & Taylor, so I always liked fashion. I always loved fashion and I love that we can do it and not take it seriously.”
― Joan Rivers
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