You're an old-timer if you can remember when setting the world on fire was a figure of speech.

—George Burns

humor age old age fire

About George Burns

Portrait of George Burns

George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum; January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996) was an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer, and one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks. He and his wife Gracie Allen...

More quotations from George Burns

Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

—George Burns

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You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.

—George Burns

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

—George Burns

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I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.

—George Burns

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If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

—George Burns

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More quotations tagged with “fire”

The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl.

universe fire water

I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire engine.

—Kurt Vonnegut

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

—William Butler Yeats

education passion fire

Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.

—Italian proverb

In 1941 Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber at thirteen thousand feet to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he smothered the fire and returned along the wing to the aircraft's cabin. Winston Churchill, an admirer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Struck dumb with awe in Churchill's presence, Ward was unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion. "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," he said.
"Yes, sir," managed Ward.
"Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours," said Churchill.

—The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes

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