"When I started writing it was kind of hard getting people to do my stuff. They' say they couldn't do my style."

“To reach beyond what you are you must ignore the rules and fashions of the day. Or perhaps better yet cast them way out in your peripheral vision where you can still see them but only as a vague reference point. This doesn’t mean that all the rules are gone. It might mean that you adopt a far tighter code of conduct to ensure the necessary level of intensity and adventure.”

“Jerry (Rice) played until he was 42. At 39, I ran a 4.43 40-yard dash. You look at the number of dropped balls and the way guys are playing now and you can't honestly say I can't do better.”

“Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.”

“I don't suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You don't have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn't hear.”

“Fifty years is the long time to think about a thinker's relevance or to think of the relevance of their work to a contemporary period.”

“I've done everything I've wanted to do. I have three children, I have grandchildren, I have books, I did movies, I've directed movies, I've done almost everything I've wanted to do.”

Source : "Carl Reiner on writing a children's book, tweeting, and joking around with Mel Brooks". Interview with Katherine Brodsky, tv.avclub.com. June 23, 2015.

“So must the artist do in working at the nude.”

“Governmental regulations all carry coercion to some degree, and even where they don't, they habituate man to expect teaching, guidance and help outside himself, instead of formulating his own.”

Source : "The Liberal Tradition in European Thought". Book by David Sidorsky, p. 73, 1971.