Marvin Hamlisch Quotes

You're playing serious music, and you want to be taken seriously. When they get my age wrong on the program, I wish they'd make me older.

I laugh and joke, but I don't get distracted very easily.

I find it odd that people take me seriously.

I'm very competitive, but I know when not to be competitive. I know how to have fun, but I know when it's time to get serious. That makes things a lot easier.

We take the show very seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously.

People sometimes mistake being serious with being taken seriously.

I need to behave in a way that will cause people to take me seriously.

I don't think anyone in their right mind takes me serious.

Take your job seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously.

I have wisdom of a 60-year-old. Also it takes a lot for me to respect a person, so when a person has a body of work behind him, it draws my respect.

If there's anything I hate more than not being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously.

I think now I'm being taken a little more seriously. That's pure conjecture on my part.

If you live long enough, the venerability factor creeps in; you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had.

You're not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That's not a place for me to joke around.

I've always liked older women. One sad thing about being my age is that there are no older women. I used to amuse my mother's friends even at five or six with witty turns of phrase. Somehow, I just knew how to be funny.

I want to prove to the skeptics that I'm not a clown. I'm very serious about what I do. I want to be a good ski jumper who has a sense of humor.

I never talk about my work as a joke.

People should take me more seriously.

Please don't compare me with Taher Shah. He is a joker, while I am an artiste - I am a model and an actress. Taher Shah comes, makes people laugh, and goes away. I work with a lot of honesty.

I'm the type of guy that's always having a joke, messing around, but when it comes to the serious stuff, you know, your head's on the game.

I know when it's time to joke and when it's time to be serious. As far as football goes, I'm serious.

I stopped drinking a few years ago, and drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble. You can get away with that your 20s, but not in your 60s, and I'll be 70 next year. Life is a small space now, much more intimate. I'm not out there in the world anymore, but I'm watching.

The best thing about being 45 is not taking myself so seriously.

In the end, all you have is your reputation.

I think that I probably break on set more than I make other people break. I've realized recently that, in my everyday social life, I'm a very easygoing person, but when it comes to work, I'm pretty type - A. I'm very focused and I take it maybe too seriously sometimes. So, when I'm on set, even when there are really funny people that I'm in the scenes with, I'm generally good at not breaking too often.