Andy Kaufman

Andy Kaufman: When you go through a tunnel - you're going on a train - you go through a tunnel, the tunnel is dark, but you're still going forward. Just remember that. But if you're not going to get up on stage for one night because you're discouraged or something, then the train is going to stop. Everytime you get up on stage, if it's a long tunnel, it's going to take a lot of times of going on stage before things get bright again. You keep going on stage, you go forward. Every night you go on stage...

Andy Kaufman: I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, "Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules." That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, "Try it". And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, "No", that's the time it works.

Andy Kaufman: When I was 7, I believed Howdy Doody was in a little world inside that glowing box. I was hypnotized and I wanted to go away, to be with him in there. When I was 8, I started doing party magic shows for kids - grown-ups had to leave. Then later, at college in Boston, I worked up my own kid's show, "Uncle Andy's Fun House".

Andy Kaufman: There's no drama like wrestling.

Andy Kaufman: My mother sent me to psychiatrists since the age of four because she didn't think little boys should be sad. When my brother was born, I stared out the window for days. Can you imagine that?

Andy Kaufman: What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality.

Andy Kaufman: While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world.

Andy Kaufman: The critics try to intellectualize my materiel. There's no satire involved. Satire is a concept that can only be understood by adults. My stuff is straight, for people of all ages.

Andy Kaufman: Pure entertainment is not an egotistical lady singing boring songs onstage for two hours and people in tuxes clapping whether they like it or not. It's the real performers on the street who can hold people's attention and keep them from walking away.

Andy Kaufman: If I play my cards right, I could bring network wrestling back to TV. Unfortunately, to most people, wrestling is a laughingstock. But fortunately, I'm reaching people who otherwise wouldn't watch it.

Andy Kaufman: I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut, or get angry from the gut.