Benny Quotations

Maybe we like our politicians to appear like bumbling oafs. It certainly never did Ronald Reagan or George Bush any harm. The Italians still seem enamoured of Silvio Berlusconi - a man whose entry into a room is less likely to be greeted with the Italian national anthem than by the Benny Hill theme tune.

Working with Benny was important for me and for black musicians in general.

No, that's not it. The first time we met was at Fat Tuesday's. Benny was playing, this was, I think in 1989?

England was always very special. It was so important because the reason Benny and I started writing was the Beatles. During the Sixties, England was everything. To be number one in England was more important than being number one in America because England set the tone.

I just want to sound different than everyone else. I don't care if it sounds bad. I just want people to be like, 'Yo, that dude Benny was different.' Even if it sounds awful, at least they can't say, 'Oh well, I've heard that before.'

As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.

When television began, it modeled itself after radio. Many early television programs were radio programs first. 'My Favorite Wife,' 'The Jack Benny Show,' 'Burns and Allen,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.'

One of our focal points going into the game was the boards against Brisbane and to stay competitive. And I thought Benny Knight was absolutely outstanding with 16 boards - I can't remember him playing a better game than that for us.

When I heard she was working with L.A. and Benny I was (thrilled). L.A. has an amazing track record and this deal gave Mariah a great support system.

Basically, I'm 51, going on 45. Or as Jack Benny might have said, I'm still 39!

He (Sheets) was lights out. Both pitchers threw phenomenally well tonight. They both had great stuff and were hitting their spots. Benny was about as good as Benny could be.

My parents were country & western fans, and the regular station would have been country. In Junior High I started liking jazz: swing and Benny Goodman.

Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, like Jack Benny and Steve Martin, but in its essence, it's soul-destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks.

I think Doug Davis would be a No. 1 starter on a lot of teams. He's every bit a No. 1 starter as Benny is. We feel good about him.

I remember when I was growing up, ... It was Jack Benny that I used to listen to on the radio at 7 o'clock on Sunday nights. And that went on and on, and he became an institution. In our own way I think we've done the same.

I still talk to Benny a little bit,

We're all really excited for and proud of Benny, ... Benny is one of the true legends of the sport and when he went to the booth, his personality changed the way NASCAR is broadcast on television forever.

We're not going to do anything stupid. We want Benny for the long haul.

We call it swing jazz, ... Think Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman-style stuff. I grew up with those people around me. So it's natural that that is what I like doing.

When Benny is hitting like that, he gives the rest of us the confidence to keep shooting.

When we were patient on offense and got a good shot, we did well. When we played too fast and didn't get a good shot, we let Zion back into the game. Benny did a real nice job for us. He wanted to win.

We're not going to pack up and die. Key injuries happen to every team. I hate it for Benny and the team, but you have to pick up the slack and go.

Believe it or not, Benny wasn't nearly as sharp as his last start. He's back healthy again - we don't even think about that anymore - and doing what he does best. He was on the attack.

Benny (Burnett) and I have played against each other several times and I knew it would be physical.

Benny Hill's character is this twisted sexual deviant who professes his love for obese women, which I thought was so funny. There was nothing like that in this movie, so I thought it would be fun to play my character as someone who had no social graces, yet was embittered by the fact he was universally refused by women.

Benny (Jacobson), Erik (Crawford) and I knew early on exactly how hard it was to win on the road. Because of that, I think we bring that toughness to let everyone else know that it's not going to be easy.

Benny marched straight up and said he wanted it. He's been kicking fantastically for us. In a couple of games this year, he's been the difference, really, and (on Saturday) before that last try he was the difference again.

Benny we think has a slight strain of his lat. It's not the shoulder or elbow. We will evaluate him tomorrow and he will be day-to-day.

Every single tune you know from the 1940s until the 1970s was written, arranged, and demoed in the Brill Building. OK, maybe not every song, but writers from Benny Goodman to Lieber & Stoller to Neil Diamond all kept offices there.

You gotta let a guy be himself, because that's what makes him. Leonard, Robinson, Ali, Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, all of them had the same attitude. If they don't have that ego kinda temperament they're not going to make it. You gotta be a selfish guy. Most people take selfishness as something bad, but it's really something good. If a guy don't help himself and think about himself first he won't make itnowhere in life doing nothing.

To be down that whole game, to fight back with our backs against the wall on the road, and Benny hitting that shot, that was something you don't forget.

People from the West Coast don't get that many opportunities, ... Benny Parsons really did a lot for me by talking to Jack.

This has been a Benny Goodman-type market, ... lots of swing, and it's very, very difficult to get a handle on long-term positioning when the market is moving up and down so rapidly.

It was a different time back then, ... They'd book Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw at the Blue Moon. In Opelousas, you'd have the Cedar Lane. They'd have Bob Crosby. You could have fallen asleep in the streets and not have worried about somebody doing anything to you. We just went out and enjoyed ourselves. People knew how to just have a good time.

It's very, very corrupting to the spirit, doing comedy. And you have to be almost a saint, like Jack Benny was, like Steve Martin is, to avoid the corrupting of it, because there's very little work where the actual work and the reward are simultaneous, and comedy is that.

Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneaker and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.

It's always the 'What if?' but man, if we had Benny Sheets, you never know, we could have been right in that wild-card hunt. We get him back strong next year and we add a few players, we'll be right there.

The first memory I have was my sisters dancing to the radio when they played records by Benny Goodman and Harry James and of the sort. But the record that got me was a record by Derek Sampson, who was a young guy, called 'Boogie Express,' and it was boogie-woogie. Really, it was on fire, and that got me.

A bunch of different kid roles on the Benny show. I worked for him for eight years, so I played Jack as a kid and other kinds of parts as well.

We felt real good where we were at halftime being up by three with Benny hitting that shot. The second half has been ours all year. The kids have done an excellent job of executing and playing great defense in the second half.

It's awesome. I really wish Bode hadn't straddled and I would prefer to have won with Benny still in the race.

It was a tough situation. We either wanted Benny or Crawford to come off a screen, but they defended it well, and they plugged up the middle of the lane. It was a tough play to make.

And everyone came through our house. I grew up with people like Benny Goodman, Zoot Sims, in the house, playing right in front of me.