Rodney Dangerfield Quotes

Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses.

Being unemployed is not good for an actor. No, it isn't, no matter how unsuccessful you are. Because you always remember getting fired from all the restaurants. You remember that stuff very, very strongly.

Poverty leads to hardship and failure.

I wasn't born with a golden spoon in my mouth. It was a really tough life.

I tell people that the best thing that can ever happen to you is getting fired, and you can either sink or swim, and I swam like hell. The reason why I swam the way I swam was because there was nothing else for me.

When a man is down on his luck he seems to consume all he can get of coffee and doughnuts.

Everybody comes up with this term lucky-"Oh, she's so lucky." Even though I was lucky, I had a lot of struggle before that. I said I was going to give up everything at age 25 and get into event management because nothing was going for me. I used to have a lot of nervous breakdowns.

My family endured a big crisis after my father's business went bankrupt and we went from having a comfortable life to having virtually nothing. I saw from that moment how fragile and precarious life can be and you have to work very hard not just to survive but also to accomplish something in life and fulfill your dreams.

When I was forty, I was getting divorced, living in a low-class, dirty hotel in New York. My mother was dying of cancer. I owed $20,000. That was about the lowest. I came back to show business, and I couldn't get a job. I was turned down by every small-time agent in New York.

Everything was a constant battle. My first film was beautiful. I got an amazing cast. That worked out great. Everything else was like murphy's law. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

For almost two months now I've been struggling away with no result.

What else have I done nearly all my life than go hungry and go on singing?

life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough

Then know, that I have little wealth to lose. A man I am, crossed with adversity; My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have.

If you don't fall how are you going to know what getting up is like.

One could draw up all different kinds of adversity depending on what your weakness is.

Life's not real easy right now. But I guess I'd rather have it this way than not at all.

No man knows what the wife of his bosom is until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.

People say it's hard at the top, but it's even harder at the bottom.

The worst years of my life were the first two years I was doing standup. You're learning how to do, and you're going on stage in front of two drunks and people aren't laughing and you're broke. That's a really hard time in your life.

I grew up poor. I had no money. My family was poor. There's things I wanted to do and couldn't. I was an abused wife. Just - there's tons of things that I couldn't even mention. And for me to come up and to have all of this fame and fortune, it's just - it is a Cinderella story to me.

Every ill man hath his ill day.

Life's pretty tough . . . you're lucky if you live through it.