“Life is much too serious to be taken seriously.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I feel it is time to lighten up and laugh about things and enjoy ourselves a little bit more.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“That’s my opportunity to hide behind that old lady and say what I want to say.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I wanted to study to be a dental hygienist, marry a rich dentist, and hang it up.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I played Miley Cyrus’ grandma on ‘Hannah Montana,’ and the first time I was on, they said, ‘We love having veterans like you on because she’s like a little sponge, and she’s really appreciative of all the veterans that are coming on the show, and we just love that you’re teaching her.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I feel like my life has been very serendipitous and really kind of humorous. Everything that’s happened to me has been like an, ‘Omigod, are you kidding me?’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“There’s going to be a picture of ‘Mama’ on my obit.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“The fun part for me is to just really push that envelope.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Things have always sort of happened for me. Something else always comes up.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I often feel like I could fall off the face of the Earth. As long as ‘Mama’ was around, nobody would really miss me. People really think of her as an actual person. People all the time see me and ask, ‘Where’s Mama?’ Like she should be with me.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I always tell people I went to the Harvard School of Comedy in front of America.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I didn’t plan on going into show business. Show business picked me. And it’s been fun. One of the best things about being in show business is people think they know me, and they feel like they grew up with me.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Tim Conway was a little different from the rest. He was always in the back of the studio building something with the prop man, rewriting his lines, or plotting our demise.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I was married for 10 minutes into a Southern family.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I never intended to be in show business; I intended to be an extremely grounded person.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I went to UCLA, my dad’s alma mater, and that was his dream.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Everyone has a crazy old lady in their family like ‘Mama.’ No one ever comes up to me and says ‘Mama’ is just like them, so no one is ever offended by her. Even young people like to laugh at her. I think she helps kids appreciate their own grandmothers more.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Even though I was in close proximity to everything, it never really dawned on me to pursue a career in show business.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I do love pasta. It gets me into trouble. If I could give up pasta and bread, I’d look like Cate Blanchett.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think the older you get, the more ‘let’s cut to the chase’ you get, ‘let’s quit quibbling about this, let’s tell it like it is.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Everybody just told me from the day I went into high school that I looked like Carol Burnett.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think for people that are dealing with this out there, the important thing to know is that this is real. It’s called CIU, and there are solutions out there for you.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I go out and speak to women’s groups all the time, and I say, ‘Guys, you gotta laugh and find the humor in things. You gotta pass it on.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“We all know him: everybody has an Archie Bunker in their family, so you love to laugh at him, and you never take it personally; everybody just has a ball laughing at him.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I flew to New York to do a commercial back in the day when people could meet you at the gate, and the little agent when I came off the plane said, ‘Oh, Miss Carr, we are so happy to have you here.’ I went, ‘Oh, for goodness sakes.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“People would get Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence all mushed together in their brains, and, bless their hearts, it would come out Carol Lawrence.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I definitely go with the flow because I feel like I have been so lucky, and so many things have happened to me that just never should have happened.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I don’t get people baring their lives on television. Maybe it makes other people feel better about themselves. Is that what it is? You watch these people making total fools of themselves. It’s like there’s absolutely no privacy.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Everybody has a dysfunctional family.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think it is a universal problem that we are so often cruel to the people we love.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“A lot of the things that loved ones say to each other, friends would never accept.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think coming East and doing something like Broadway would probably be a good career move.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“This country wants to laugh. We want to, and we need to. I’m happy to oblige.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I’m very particular about what I want.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I really am a cockeyed optimist.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“My parents raised me to believe that when one door slams in your face, turn around because there’s probably another door opening up somewhere.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Anybody who has spent time with the networks – in fact, you don’t even have to spend time with the networks, all you have to do is just watch primetime TV – and you think, ‘What the hell are they doing? I could run the network better.’ And I think everybody feels that way.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think it’s time for people to stop being so serious about everything.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I really feel my family is my priority.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Yes, I love playing Mom.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“TV’s been good to me.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Most of the cast and crew on ‘Mama’s Family’ have been together since the ‘Carol Burnett’ days, so we work really well together. It’s like I’m being paid to pretend I’m in show business.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Making people laugh is what I really enjoy.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“My favorite game shows were ‘Password’ and ‘$25,000 Pyramid.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Dick Clark and I had such a hysterical relationship with each other.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Mama is my chance to be a stand-up comedian. In my mind, it’s my chance to be Chris Rock.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When I was in high school, in my generation, I thought that you got a logical, sensible job, or you got married.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I love to cook. I’m a sailor. And I was the eighth-grade ping-pong champion.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think the Mama people remember is from ‘Mama’s Family.’ She really turned into a pretty cool character. The sketches from the ‘Burnett’ show, if people are old enough to remember, were written by writers who all hated their mothers.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Some talk shows have become so exploitive and tabloid, I wonder if I can believe some of their guests. Where do they find these guests, and why do they deserve air time?”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think I’m pretty average. Typical.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“There’s nobody telling Oprah what to do. There’s no one telling David Letterman what he can and can’t do. You’ve got to have 100 percent support from everybody who’s behind the show, across the board.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When the opportunity came along to do ‘Win, Lose or Draw,’ I took it selfishly to find out if I did enjoy being me on camera. And I did that for the last two years I was doing ‘Mama’s Family.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“What I learned was that celebrities come to me with a preconceived notion. They think I’m fun, or they’ve worked with me, or they know me, or we’ve met. So there’s a lot of backstuff on the ‘Vicki!’ show.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“It took me a lot of years on the ‘Burnett’ show to feel like I had earned the privilege to play in the sandbox with the grown-ups.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“The thing that everybody loves about the ‘Burnett Show’ was that you felt like you were really there – all that fun stuff stayed in the show, and I think that’s why everybody remembers it so fondly because that just doesn’t happen anymore on television.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I think the audience keeps it fresh for me. You just never know – every audience has its own personality.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Everyone has fond memories of ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ and the characters we did.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“’Mama’s Family’ was kind of like everyone’s guilty pleasure.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“It’s special to have people see you and tell you, ‘You make me laugh.’ That makes me feel good. I think if you have the talent to do it, it’s your duty to pass it on.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“Harvey Korman was like a private tutor to me. He was such a mentor.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I had a hit talk show. I just wasn’t working for the right people.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“My fans were probably the most therapeutic thing for me.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I don’t know how anyone could stop working.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I don’t care about making a fool of myself on stage anymore. I don’t care what people think.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I was trying to be Mary Tyler Moore. I loved her in ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I was really a shy kid.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I’ve been at it since 1967, and I still love it. There is nothing quite like making people laugh.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“It’s always good to play tennis with a better player to bring out the best in you.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I am no prude, but when I watch comedy, I ask myself, ‘Who wrote this? A teenage boy in the locker room?’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When I started on the ‘Burnett’ show, I was just out of high school, and when we went off the air, I was 28 years old, married with two kids. At that point I felt I really wanted to be mommy to my children. But I found that after a year and a half, I really missed the part of myself that was an actress.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When you’ve got kids, you turn into Mom, and that’s it.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I found that I need to work, and I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t taken the time off.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I went to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to visit all the troops. We would fly into a hospital and serve mess to the guys, and we ate whatever they were eating. Then we slept there and flew out the next day to little bases where there were maybe 10 or 20 guys. Then we flew to another hospital.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“My dad planned a road trip every summer, so we always did the road trip. We did the Eastern Seaboard and learned about the history of the United States.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“We did a lot of those road trips, all the mandatory stuff that you should when you’re a kid, like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon and the Sequoias and the western coast.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When I hosted ‘Win, Lose or Draw,’ it was always fascinating to me that no one knew where anything was when they had to draw a destination.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“When I first got an outbreak of hives, I tried everything to find relief. I felt like no one understood what I was going through.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I was lucky to have my allergist who diagnosed me with CIU.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“CIU is not something to just tolerate. It’s important to find an allergist or dermatologist who can work with you to help manage your condition.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I want to be open about my condition to show others that they are not alone in dealing with this form of chronic hives. My advice for people with CIU is to talk to their doctor about their condition.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“It’s just kinda what I did: played crazy old ladies.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“We all have somebody that sits down at the Thanksgiving table and says the most outrageous things, and you’re doin’ the dishes with your sister, and you’re like, ‘Omigod, can you believe she said that?’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“RuPaul knew details of the ‘Burnett Show’ that even surprised me.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I’ve really enjoyed doing ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ and loved Neil Simon stuff like ‘Chapter Two.’”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I never got to Broadway. I would love to do that.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I remember being totally enamored with Sid Caesar.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I’ve always thought George Carlin was brilliant.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“There is no such thing as a perfect mother.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I am interested in a lot of the same things people are interested in. I am trying to raise kids without them self-destructing. I am trying to hold the marriage together, and I am trying to take off the same 10 pounds everyone else is.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I am opinionated and want to be part of the conversations.”
― Vicki Lawrence
“I hear from many a man around Halloween that’s dressed up as Mama for Halloween. It’s a great costume.”
― Vicki Lawrence
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