Vicki Lawrence

Everyone has fond memories of 'The Carol Burnett Show' and the characters we did.

I've been at it since 1967, and I still love it. There is nothing quite like making people laugh.

I was really a shy kid.

I was trying to be Mary Tyler Moore. I loved her in 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'

I don't care about making a fool of myself on stage anymore. I don't care what people think.

I don't know how anyone could stop working.

My fans were probably the most therapeutic thing for me.

I had a hit talk show. I just wasn't working for the right people.

Harvey Korman was like a private tutor to me. He was such a mentor.

It's special to have people see you and tell you, 'You make me laugh.' That makes me feel good. I think if you have the talent to do it, it's your duty to pass it on.

I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.

'Mama's Family' was kind of like everyone's guilty pleasure.

It's always good to play tennis with a better player to bring out the best in you.

I think the audience keeps it fresh for me. You just never know - every audience has its own personality.

The thing that everybody loves about the 'Burnett Show' was that you felt like you were really there - all that fun stuff stayed in the show, and I think that's why everybody remembers it so fondly because that just doesn't happen anymore on television.

What I learned was that celebrities come to me with a preconceived notion. They think I'm fun, or they've worked with me, or they know me, or we've met. So there's a lot of backstuff on the 'Vicki!' show.

When the opportunity came along to do 'Win, Lose or Draw,' I took it selfishly to find out if I did enjoy being me on camera. And I did that for the last two years I was doing 'Mama's Family.'

There's nobody telling Oprah what to do. There's no one telling David Letterman what he can and can't do. You've got to have 100 percent support from everybody who's behind the show, across the board.

I think I'm pretty average. Typical.

Some talk shows have become so exploitive and tabloid, I wonder if I can believe some of their guests. Where do they find these guests, and why do they deserve air time?

I think the Mama people remember is from 'Mama's Family.' She really turned into a pretty cool character. The sketches from the 'Burnett' show, if people are old enough to remember, were written by writers who all hated their mothers.

I love to cook. I'm a sailor. And I was the eighth-grade ping-pong champion.

When I was in high school, in my generation, I thought that you got a logical, sensible job, or you got married.

Mama is my chance to be a stand-up comedian. In my mind, it's my chance to be Chris Rock.

I want to be open about my condition to show others that they are not alone in dealing with this form of chronic hives. My advice for people with CIU is to talk to their doctor about their condition.

I hear from many a man around Halloween that's dressed up as Mama for Halloween. It's a great costume.

I am opinionated and want to be part of the conversations.

I am interested in a lot of the same things people are interested in. I am trying to raise kids without them self-destructing. I am trying to hold the marriage together, and I am trying to take off the same 10 pounds everyone else is.

There is no such thing as a perfect mother.

I've always thought George Carlin was brilliant.

I remember being totally enamored with Sid Caesar.

I never got to Broadway. I would love to do that.

I've really enjoyed doing 'Annie Get Your Gun' and loved Neil Simon stuff like 'Chapter Two.'

RuPaul knew details of the 'Burnett Show' that even surprised me.

We all have somebody that sits down at the Thanksgiving table and says the most outrageous things, and you're doin' the dishes with your sister, and you're like, 'Omigod, can you believe she said that?'

It's just kinda what I did: played crazy old ladies.

My favorite game shows were 'Password' and '$25,000 Pyramid.'

CIU is not something to just tolerate. It's important to find an allergist or dermatologist who can work with you to help manage your condition.

I was lucky to have my allergist who diagnosed me with CIU.

When I first got an outbreak of hives, I tried everything to find relief. I felt like no one understood what I was going through.

When I hosted 'Win, Lose or Draw,' it was always fascinating to me that no one knew where anything was when they had to draw a destination.

We did a lot of those road trips, all the mandatory stuff that you should when you're a kid, like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon and the Sequoias and the western coast.

My dad planned a road trip every summer, so we always did the road trip. We did the Eastern Seaboard and learned about the history of the United States.

I found that I need to work, and I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't taken the time off.

When you've got kids, you turn into Mom, and that's it.

When I started on the 'Burnett' show, I was just out of high school, and when we went off the air, I was 28 years old, married with two kids. At that point I felt I really wanted to be mommy to my children. But I found that after a year and a half, I really missed the part of myself that was an actress.

I am no prude, but when I watch comedy, I ask myself, 'Who wrote this? A teenage boy in the locker room?'

Tim Conway was a little different from the rest. He was always in the back of the studio building something with the prop man, rewriting his lines, or plotting our demise.

Everybody just told me from the day I went into high school that I looked like Carol Burnett.

I think the older you get, the more 'let's cut to the chase' you get, 'let's quit quibbling about this, let's tell it like it is.'