If we’re going to collect quotes, we’re going to be collecting quotes from people who’ve done a lot of stuff. And given that Dick Van Dyke has been kicking around since 1925, it’s safe to say he’s done quite a lot. An actor, comedian, writer, dancer, and singer since 1947, his career has crossed into 7 different decades (not counting 2020). Kicking up steam on Broadway and later The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966), you know you’ve probably made it when you have a show that’s literally just named… Your name. Van Dyke also served as a radio announcer during WWII before being a troop entertainer in the Special Services (he originally intended to serve as a pilot in the Air Force). Doing some pantomiming in 1947, Van Dyke’s Broadway career would pick up in 1959 with The Girls Against the Boys. He’d later gain notoriety featuring in films like Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Bye Bye Birdie in the 1960s. A true Hollywood icon, here are some classic Dick Van Dyke quotes.
21 Dick Van Dyke QuotesOn Youth and Life
“Emotionally, I’m about 13.”
“When you’re a kid, you lay in the grass and watch the clouds going over, and you literally don’t have a thought in your mind. It’s purely meditation, and we lose that.”
“Don’t worry so much. Most of the things you worry about never end up happening.”
“My brother and I laughed a lot as kids. We came up in the middle of the Depression, and neither one of us knew we were poor. We had nothing, but we didn’t know it.”
“I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don’t. I can’t get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.”
“I didn’t even start dancing until I was in my thirties, and it was like flying.”
“I’m always announcing my retirement. I’m still not retired.”
“I think, the ‘Van Dyke Show’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn’t want it to end.”
“My life has been a magnificent indulgence.”
“I’ve won several Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, so maybe somebody will let me have an Oscar, and then I’ll have a full set.”
“When I started having kids, I thought, ‘I don’t want to do anything they can’t watch.’”
On Time & Age
“For some reason, as time gets short in life, wasting time escaping through entertainment bothers me.”
“If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
“Once you’re dead, your worries are over.”
“Ageism is probably the last discrimination that’s accepted in this culture. I don’t understand it. So many people are more afraid of old age than they are of dying, I think.”
“In my seventies, I exercised to stay ambulatory. In my eighties, I exercise to avoid assisted living.”
“Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I’m just going to put: ‘Glad I Could Help.’”
On Entertainment
“You know, I’m almost out of the habit of watching episodic television now.”
“There are no more Walt Disneys anymore.”
On Contemporary Politics
“He has been a magnet to all the racists and xenophobes in the country. I haven’t been this scared since the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think the human race is hanging in a delicate balance right now, and I’m just so afraid he will put us in a war. He scares me.”
“In Bernie Sanders, I see a man saying that the emperor has no clothes while everyone around him insists they see clothes.”
Did you like these Dick Van Dyke quotes? For those who enjoy The Dick Van Dyke Show, here’s some character trivia.