199 Quotes by Bob Hope
Bob Hope, an American comedian and entertainer, brought laughter and joy to millions of people around the world throughout his legendary career. Known for his quick wit, charm, and impeccable timing, Hope's career spanned over seven decades, and he excelled in various mediums, including radio, television, film, and live performances.
His comedy style often revolved around self-deprecating humor, topical jokes, and playful banter. Hope's iconic presence became synonymous with popular culture, and he became a beloved figure, hosting numerous shows, including his famous USO tours, entertaining American troops stationed abroad.
Beyond his comedic talents, Hope was also a philanthropist and a champion of causes such as education and healthcare. His dedication to giving back and his contributions to the entertainment industry earned him numerous accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bob Hope's enduring legacy as an entertainer and his ability to bring laughter to audiences during challenging times continue to inspire comedians and entertainers today.
Bob Hope Quotes
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. (Meaning)
A sense of humor is good for you. Have you ever heard of a laughing hyena with heart burn?
No one party can fool all of the people all of the time; that's why we have two parties
My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?
The good news is that Jesus is coming back. The bad news is that he's really pissed off.
When she started to play, Steinway came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano.
The trees in Siberia are miles apart, that is why the dogs are so fast.
Most of the people who came for dancing lessons had Rumba ambitions and minuet bodies
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.
You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.
The place was so British, I wouldn't have been surprised if the mice wore monocles.
When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.
He hits the ball 130 yards and his jewelry goes 150.
You know you've reached middle age when your weightlifting consists merely of standing up.
If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
Golf is a game that needlessly prolongs the lives of some of our most useless citizens.
I'll tell 'ya how to stay young: Hang around with older people.
Where else but in America could the women's liberation movement take off their bras, then go on TV to complain about their lack of support?
Everyone's nervous these days. Ronald McDonald has hired six bodyguards, and that's just to protect his buns.
Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle.
People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.
Rock and roll is catching on all over . . . France . . . England . . . They even have it in Japan, only over there they call it judo.
My next door neighbor just had a pacemaker installed. They're still working the bugs out, though. Every time he makes love, my garage door opens.
Bigamy is the only crime where two rites make a wrong.
Eighty is when you order a steak and the headwaiter puts it through the blender. Or when you wake up as many times during the night as Burt Reynolds, but not for the same reason.
My secret for staying young is good food, plenty of rest, and a makeup man with a spray gun.
Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it's known at my house, Passover.
She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn't help wondering from what direction.
I've always been in the right place and time. Of course, I steered myself there.
You know what a fan letter is - it's just an inky raspberry.
I would not have had anything to eat if it wasn't for the stuff the audience threw at me.
In his prime, the young comic walked onto a stage with the confidence of a man who owned it, and by the time he walked off, he did.
You never get tired unless you stop and take time for it.
Foursomes have left the first tee there and have never been seen again. They just find their shoelaces and bags.
If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.
The Concorde is great. It gives you three extra hours to find your luggage.
Whenever I play with him , I usually try to make it a foursome - the President, myself, a paramedic and a faith healer.
The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.
We flew over to England by the same route Churchill took. It was easy. All we had to do was follow the cigar ashes.
With today's movies, if we took out all the bad language, we'd go back to silent films.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.
When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor's Orphanage - he shot both his parents and moved in.
The only time to believe any kind of rating is when it shows you at the top.
I'm so old they've cancelled my blood type.
Pebble Beach is Alcatraz with grass.
It's so cold here in Washington, D.C., that politicians have their hands in their own pockets.
Culture is the ability to describe Jane Russell without moving your hands
Jack Benny really liked my book. I know because he called me up from the library and told me.
Our first stop was red square, the heart of Moscow - if Moscow has one.
Some people put us down. But I still haven't heard of any Americans trying to swim across the border into Mexico!
A few years ago he had a big heart transplant in Chicago, a five-hour operation. It took the doctors four hours to get him on the operating table.
Kids are wonderful, but I like mine barbecued.
Everybody knows what California smog is - that's fog with the vitamins removed.
Laughter is therapy-an instant vacation.
Golf is a hard game to figure. One day you will go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and, for no reason at all, you really stink.
Middle age is when you still believe you'll feel better in the morning.
The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
I don't know what people have against Jimmy Carter. He's done nothing.
Wine, women and song have been replaced by prune juice, a heating pad and the Gong Show.
Free speech isn't dead in Germany and Italy, merely the speakers.
Golf is my profession Show business is just to pay the green fees.
Don't people know that they don't have to heckle the president of the United States? That's what Congress is for.
Failure is the only thing I've ever been a success at.
One of the greatest gifts to mankind is laughter, and one of the greatest gifts to laughter is Lucille Ball. God has her now but thanks to television, we'll have her forever.
And on nearby islands, the Japanese army was eating raw fish. We felt sorry for them. We didn't know that in America after the war, you wouldn't be able to get into a sushi joint without a reservation. And we thought they lost.
Chiropractic is a wonderful means of natural healing!
After the 1984 Summer Olympics, Reagan wanted to add the U.S. volleyball team to his Cabinet. He figured if they can't shove his programs down Congress' throat, nobody can.
A photographer kept shooting me every time I swung. I was very flattered until I found out he was from Field and Stream.
If you think golf is relaxing, you're not playing it right.
Television is the box they buried entertainment in.
If I'm on the course and lightning starts, I get inside fast. If God wants to play through, let him.
Not that they were that anxious to see Ronnie as President; they were afraid if he didn't get elected, he'd go back to acting.
Golf's really fun in Japan because of the women caddies. ... I saw one guy start out playing alone with his caddie. By the 9th hole they were engaged and when they finished on 18 they had a foursome.
Drugs are very much a part of professional sports today, but when you think about it, golf is the only sport where the players aren't penalized for being on grass.
England occupies a warm spot in my affections. It was the scene of my greatest performance. I was born there.
Celebrities have a way of touching our lives. Perhaps we are influenced by their screen image, or perhaps by their acquired status. Here are some celebrity quotes about Christmas. You will find that just like everybody else, celebrities also enjoy the little pleasures of Christmas.
Gerry Ford is easy to spot on the course. He drives the cart with the red cross painted on top.
It's a wonderful way to live, and not a bad way to go, either. The average Frenchman is still smiling three months after he's dead.
We have 51 golf courses in Palm Springs. He [President Ford] never decides which course he will play until after the first tee shot.
My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar - I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty one.
The stealth bomber is supposed to be a big deal. It flies in undetected, bombs, then flies away. Hell, I've been doing that all my life.
Your ignorance cramps my conversation
My folks were English. They were too poor to be British. I still have a bit of British in me. In fact, my blood type is solid marmalade.
Now that the war is winding down, I want to say I do appreciate you fellows hanging around here - just for me.
I'll shoot my age if I have to live to be 105.
That's life. The older you get, the tougher it is to score.
You've got to be rich to have a swing like that.
Isn't it fun to go out on the course and lie in the sun?
Vice President Spiro Agnew can not cheat on his score : because all you have to do is look back down the fairway and count the wounded.
If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it.
It's amazing how many people you see on TV. I did my first television show a month ago, and the next day five million television sets were sold. The people who couldn't sell theirs threw them away.
I've got to watch myself these days. It's too exciting watching anyone else.
A James Cagney love scene is one where he lets the other guy live.
Perfume acts as an anesthetic. By the time she floats a little your way, you'll promise her anything.
I only speak a little pigeon French. Just enough to get by with the little French pigeons.
Louis B. Mayer came out west with $28.00, a box camera and an old lion. He built a monument to himself -- the Bank of America.
Golf is my real profession. Entertainment is just a sideline. I tell jokes to pay my greens fees.
Everybody is afraid they won't have any money after they die, but Jack Benny discovered a way to take it with him. He had his appendix taken out and a piggy bank put in.
Golf is a funny game. It's done much for health, and at the same time has ruined people by robbing them of their peace of mind. Look at me, I'm the healthiest idiot in the world.
You could buy my book in a paperback edition for a dollar, and in hard covers for $3.50. And for fifty cents extra, I come around to your house personally and wet your finger while you're turning the pages.
I can't understand what's holding up our missile program. It's the first time the government ever had trouble making the taxpayers' money go up in smoke.
There's a very apt saying in show business: "If you don't go over budget in Paris, you're either very rich or very sick. "
Be happy you guys. Be proud! You know what you are: you're God's frozen people.
In England when you make a movie even the weather is against you. In Hollywood the weatherman gets a shooting schedule from all the major studios and then figures out where he can fit in a little rain without upsetting Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer too much.
It's very frustrating making a picture in Paris. We work hard all day at the studio to get a love scene just right. Then, on my way home, I see couples on every street corner doing it better.
We're on our way to the Persian Gulf. Wait! It's a mistake! I thought they said Persian Golf.
I don't bother to look for parking space anymore. As soon as I get near Hollywood Boulevard ... I sell.
Congress may be going home for the holidays soon. How can you beat a Christmas gift like that?
It gave dirty politics a bad name.
The big difference in those days was that in England the Government subsidized TV, in America we work on TV so we can subsidize the Government.
For the first time, you can actually see the losers turn green
I'd give up golf if I didn't have so many sweaters.
Contrary to what certain comedians have led you to believe, the national French pastime is picnicking.
It's not hard to find Gerry Ford on a golf course - you just follow the wounded.
They'll always be an England, even if it's in Hollywood.
It's a wonderful world. It may destroy itself but you'll be able to watch it all on TV.
America is a country where the Olympics and the divorce lawyers both have the same slogan - Go for the Gold.
Happiness is watching the TV at your girlfriend's house during a power failure.
Ronald Reagan is not a typical politician because he doesn't know how to lie, cheat, and steal. He's always had an agent for that.
Every Naval vessel has a contingent of Marines aboard. After all, the Sailors have to have someone to dance with.
Kissing is like drinking tea with a tea strainer, you can never get enough.
I have this terrific make-up man. But he's expensive. I have to bring him in from Lourdes.
Democrats have an answer to the unemployment problem. They're all running for the Presidency.
I see the Beatles have arrived from England. They were 40 pounds overweight - and that was just their hair.
It was a typically British birth... I was three at the time. They had a strike in the maternity ward... I came out in sympathy.
US President Gerald Ford's golf was so bad we thought he was a 'Hitman for the PGA!
Sure, we did need the oil in America. How else could Dolly Parton get into some of her dresses?
I once showed Pat Bradley my swing and said, 'What do I do next?' Pat replied, 'Wait till the pain dies down.'
Personally, I never drink on Oscar nights, as it interferes with my suffering.
Milton Hope led the singing of Happy Birthday ... He would say, 'Keep it sweet and short and don't try to be funny.'
Eisenhower admitted that the budget can't be balanced and McCarthy said the communists are taking over. You don't know what to worry about these days - whether the country will be overthrown or overdrawn.
Don't tempt me, I can resist anything but temptation.
Following his doctor's orders, Nikita (Khrushchev) has cut his drinking in half. He's leaving out the water.
I've always felt England was a great place for a comic to work. It's an island and the audience can't run very far.
I led such a sheltered life I didn't go out with girls until I was almost four.
Timing is the essence of life, and definitely of comedy.
The workers love Khrushchev very much. He hasn't got an enemy in the entire country. Quite a few under it.
I left England when I was four because I found out I could never be King.
I've never wanted an Oscar, although they are reassuring to an actor who doesn't know how really great he is.
The last time I played golf with President Ford he hit a birdie. And an eagle, a moose, an elk, an aardvark...
Audiences are my best friends. You never tire of talking with your best friends.
Did you see where President Reagan finally got a hearing aid? People have been telling him to get one for years, but he couldn't hear them.
I've been playing the game so long that my handicap is in Roman numerals.
The high point of the act is when he (Uri Durov) puts his head inside the bear's huge jaws. I wouldn't even try that with my agent.
Lots of travel, away from home.
The Governor has no presidential aspirations. In fact he just made a tour of 43 states just to tell them he's not running for anything.
Tokyo cab drivers are all ex-kamikaze pilots.
On one hole, I hit an alligator so hard, he's now my golf bag.
Arnold Palmer is the biggest crowd pleaser since the invention of the portable sanitary facility.
Jimmy Stewart could have been a good golfer, but he speaks so slowly that by the time he yells 'Fore!' the guy he's hit is already in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
The audience was swell. They were so polite they covered their mouths when they yawned.
You know, marriage is making a big comeback. I know personally that in Hollywood people are marrying people they never married before.
Take nine strokes off your score. Skip the last hole.
Dying is to be avoided because it can ruin your whole career.
We had a very successful trip to Russia. We made it back.
Sure Vietnam is a dirty war. I've never heard of a clean one.
I have performed for 12 presidents and entertained only six.
Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother.
She spoke perfect English, which led to considerable trouble. She couldn't understand us at all.
Today's ballroom dances like the swim, the frug, the chicken and the monkey are really nervous disorders set to music.
At the Academy Award Dinners all the actors and actresses in Hollywood gather around to see what someone else thinks about their acting besides their press agents.
To give you an idea of how fast we travelled - we left with two rabbits and when we arrived we still had only two.
My old friend Jack Benny has only had one ball all his golfing life. And now he's lost it. The string came off!
President Eisenhower has given up golf for painting. It takes fewer strokes.
Miniskirts have become quite a fad. They're even some guys wearing them. Don't laugh, if you had thought to of that, you'd not be here now.
You can calculate Zsa Zsa Gabor's age by the rings on her fingers.
Having so many gold courses so close together was ideal for me. With my slice I could enjoy three or four golf courses at the same time.
It flies so high, I swear I heard the organs playing.
Television. That's where movies go when they die.
As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn't been touched by the war and blew it to hell.
Please don't stand up on my account.
I've been married fifty-five years and I've been home three weeks.
When you get over 95, every day is your day.
My folks were English . . . we were too poor to be British.
If they liked you, they didn't applaud -- they let you live.
I've been playing golf a long time, although it's not really true that on my first round they strapped my bag on the back of a dinosaur.
All British castles and old country homes are supposed to be haunted. It's in the lease.
There are many talented English personalities, but unfortunately they were all in Hollywood.
The service at the Imperial (Tokyo) is the finest I've encountered anywhere. There was a button next to my bed marked ROOM SERVICE - and a maid to press it for me.
The firm is really ahead of the times. It has a stock market ticker that prints its report on thin aspirins.
I ruined my hands in the ring. The referee kept stepping on them.
If my golf game was a prize fight, they'd stop it.
A very, very religious man. Every time I eat a peanut, I feel immortal.
Congratulations to whoever is finally booking music we love. It's going to get us out of the house after dark!
Out here in the Pacific, they have typhoons and hurricanes that blow over 200 miles an hour. We have tornadoes and hurricanes back home, but I don't worry about them. The mortgage on my house is so heavy that nothing could budge it.
It sure has been a pleasure for us to broadcast for the sailors and soldiers; besides, its part of the National Defence Program to prepare our boys for anything.
The old water heater in my dressing room was working, but it was kind of tired. It gave off about as much warmth as an agent's handshake.
I felt I wasn't getting anywhere in England.
If he slices the budget like he slices a golf ball, the nation has nothing to worry about.
Baseball is a soap opera that plays out day after day, one that a lot of elderly women watch until the characters and the plot becomes a part of their life. She got to enjoy the personal side of the players. They were her kids. The Braves were her family.
Cypress Point is such a beautiful place, but it's also very exclusive. They had a very successful membership drive last month. They drove out forty members.
The home videos aren't as good, but they are seeming to get better.
I tell jokes to pay my green fees.
Titleist has offered me a big contract not to play its balls.
Seventy years of ad-lib material, and I am speechless.
There was nothing subtle about our landing. The pilot just pointed the nose at the ground and let her rip.
Go figure a crazy, mixed-up country where ballet outsells boxing. I wouldn't be surprised if their wrestling was on the level.
― Bob Hope Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
