George Carlin Quotes

I've been told that I'm good at impersonating people.

Bill Hader does a really good impression of me.

I was impersonating people way, way, way early, as far back as I can remember. And I would do people on my street for my parents, I remember. And in school, I did the same thing with all the teachers. It was just like, I mean, it was something I loved to do. I don't think there was a time when I wasn't doing it. I was always doing it.

I'm a terrific mimic, and you can feel my funny bone.

I could do John Wayne, Jack Benny, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and entertain my friends. But I never seriously considered it as a career choice.

I didn't sound anything like Capote at the screen test. It was more like Bob Dylan. In his early years. With the flu.

When I was a kid, I would impersonate anything that I would hear. It's - actually, I attribute that more to why I actually was able to become a musician and a singer.

I'm a good mimic.

I just love to impersonate people, and I impersonate people because I find them fascinating.

I found that I could make people laugh doing people like Shirley Bassey. Fortunately it worked.

I'm not the best singer in the world; I'm just good at picking up what I want to sound like.

I was probably a bit of a mimic when I was a kid, and I used to imitate people.

I have always been a good mimic.

When I'm around someone for about five minutes, I can usually mimic their voice.

When I was little, when I was a kid, I used to sit in front of the TV and just say what the TV says. It's how I got good at imitating people.

My brother told me that I used to clown around with voices as a kid.

My friends were the class clowns, but I was the one in class doing Michael Jordan or teachers for no reason. I've always been amazing at impersonating real people, too, rather than celebrities.

As actors you have this trait to imitate very easily. I don't want to imitate anything or limit myself of finding this creature, this woman because I'm looking at magazines and I'm reading comics, and I'm asking people that are avid readers of The Guardians.

The good thing about being shy though as a child is that you become very observant because you're not really actively participating. You're sitting back watching everyone. I think that's really helped me as an actress because I'm good at observing people and then copying them for comic effect.

You're not going to be able to look like anyone else, no matter how hard you try, unless you're a mimic, then you're not acting, you're just mimicking. You can't go on being John Wayne, that's John Wayne. So you're not going to steal from John Wayne. I'm not going to steal from John Wayne and you're not going to come back and say 'Didn't you get that from the circus?' You know. But he is one of those people who instructs me, whom I look up to - whom I think is one of the masters of his craft that I am so enamoured of.

You try to go with something that's familiar to people and that way they can jump on board with what you're trying to do basically. I only mimic people that really have like interesting voices because it's really hard to mimic like someone who just talks regularly like me like there's nothing fun about that.

Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.

Imitation is always insult--not flattery.

I was a class clown, of the classic term for it. I would get the work done easily, and then I would try to deprive other people of their educations. I developed skills for mimicry, and I was a good showoff. I knew how to get attention, and I knew how to do it in a positive funny way.

They've imitated me so good that sometimes I hear people copying my mistakes