Top 35 Paul Reubens Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I know you are, but what am I?”

— Paul Reubens

2. “I wouldn’t sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!”

— Paul Reubens

3. “I’ve been super lucky in that I’ve either been in or helped create situations where I do what I want. I’m super lucky. I get to do what I want and create art and make people laugh, and it’s really fun.”

— Paul Reubens

4. “There are things about me you wouldn’t understand, things you couldn’t understand, things you shouldn’t understand.”

— Paul Reubens

5. “The public may think I’m weird. They may think I’m crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That’s all fine. As long as one of the things you’re not thinking about me is that I’m a pedophile. Because that’s not true.”

— Paul Reubens

6. “The first time I met Prince he invented me to his birthday party in Minneapolis. It was a costume party and I came as a beatnik – a beret and a charcoal goatee. He was dressed like an executioner. I talked to him for awhile and he didn’t know who I was, and when I told him he was real surprised.”

— Paul Reubens

7. “I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn’t quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.”

— Paul Reubens

8. “I’m the person with the final say on everything. I really love being in that position.”

— Paul Reubens

9. “I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.”

— Paul Reubens

10. “I was looking to be pale, you know, like the kind of person who has that pigment in their skin where no matter what the weather is they have pink cheeks. I had a couple of friends like that. But it was all very instinctive in a way. I never really thought that much about it.”

— Paul Reubens

11. “I enjoy getting to be arty and quirky and weird and all the things that I don’t have that much choice with. You just sort of use what you got.”

— Paul Reubens

12. “I think there’s a danger that some people look at the success of my first movie as a fluke. So I want to make sure that my second film is an even bigger success. Then if I direct my third movie and it’s terrible, it’ll be okay.”

— Paul Reubens

13. “Part of what I do comes from the fact that I don’t know any jokes to tell. And when I do they’re really flat and don’t work.”

— Paul Reubens

14. “There were just things in Disney movies that probably were too scary for kids.”

— Paul Reubens

15. “I would love to be in Kansas.”

— Paul Reubens

16. “I’ve always felt like a kid, and I still feel like a kid, and I’ve never had any problem tapping into my childhood, and my kid side.”

— Paul Reubens

17. “I feel the only way I’m going to be successful in moving on is if I keep a separation.”

— Paul Reubens

18. “I’m fortunately not in a situation where someone owns me.”

— Paul Reubens

19. “I was looking for a last name that was a first name. Growing up, I knew a kid who was the most obnoxious kid I ever knew, and his last name was Herman.”

— Paul Reubens

20. “I don’t think Bruce Willis can compete with me. I have a much better voice.”

— Paul Reubens

21. “I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, “It may appear that I’m going to go haywire, but I’m not.” I always map out what I’m going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.”

— Paul Reubens

22. “I’d love to do a talk show. But I’m too busy for it. It’s just too much work.”

— Paul Reubens

23. “I don’t really want to direct myself, but I’m certainly torn in that direction.”

— Paul Reubens

24. “We’re in a situation now where fewer and fewer small films get made. People want these big giant tentpole sort of things, and I don’t know, it’s getting harder and harder to make a small movie.”

— Paul Reubens

25. “I think my entire career path was determined for me when I was 6 years old, watching reruns of ‘I Love Lucy’ on TV and thinking about making people laugh.”

— Paul Reubens

26. “I’d love to work with Francis Ford Coppola. I met Coppola on an airplane.”

— Paul Reubens

27. “The original suit was designed by a guy named Mr. Jay from Hollywood. But nowadays I’m having the suit duplicated. At this point I have about three good suits and about three really raggedy ones.”

— Paul Reubens

28. “I probably have become more infamous from two misdemeanors than probably anyone I could think of.”

— Paul Reubens

29. “I have a deal with a company that’s going to do cards without the gum. I don’t like sugarless gum, and I don’t think it’s much better for you.”

— Paul Reubens

30. “I was always in disguise. I’d wear masks or weird get-ups so you couldn’t recognize me. I was always afraid that if somebody caught on that it was me, I’d never work again.”

— Paul Reubens

31. “I can sit in the room with the other writers and just keep saying no until there’s something I really like or until I come up with something. In that respect the proportion of what’s mine and what’s other people’s is controlled by me. It isn’t even fair to talk about.”

— Paul Reubens

32. “In my experience I haven’t met too many uptight black people. I’m sure they’re out there. Like I’m some big authority and I’ve lived in the inner city and ghetto.”

— Paul Reubens

33. “People read so much into what I do. It’s fascinating to me because some of it’s probably there, but I haven’t thought of it.”

— Paul Reubens

34. “I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it’s so much more real.”

— Paul Reubens

35. “The public already knows about me more than I ever wanted it to know.”

— Paul Reubens

36. “It’s a lot easier to say you’re a comic than a performance artist.”

— Paul Reubens

37. “I’ve always been very interested in ensemble work. One reason why I don’t go out and do a stand-up act is that I did it once and I found it unsatisfying. I don’t really like being out there by myself. I like reacting with other people.”

— Paul Reubens