David Letterman: Self - Host

Quotes 

• David Letterman : [discussing the Hugh Grant scandal]  Big-time movie stars are always doing strange things, and sometimes they include arrests, sometimes they include illegal activities...

  Gene Siskel : Is this the strangest, though, that you've heard of?

  Roger Ebert : No, I think all kinds of people...

  David Letterman : Well, Pee-Wee Herman comes to mind.

  [audience laughter] 

  Gene Siskel : You think that's stranger, that's stranger than what Hugh Grant did?

  David Letterman : Well he, well YEAH, kinda!

  [audience laughter/cheers] 

  David Letterman : Well, I mean...

  Gene Siskel : What do you think? Wait a minute! What do you think?

  David Letterman : Yeah! What do YOU think? Screamin' at him. I don't know why we're screamin' at the poor guy.

  Roger Ebert : You think, you think, actually, that Pee-Wee Herman's behavior is more understandable, to you, right?

  [audience laughter/cheers] 

  Roger Ebert : Than Hugh Grant's.

  Gene Siskel : I'm saying... I'm saying that Hugh Grant took a bigger risk.

  David Letterman : I...

  Roger Ebert : Not as it turns out! Pee-Wee Herman apologized and he still hasn't been brought back on the air.

  David Letterman : He went, they were both after the same thing, more or less.

  Gene Siskel : You got it. You're absolutely right.

  David Letterman : One of them decided to go in and take care of it in a theater...

  Gene Siskel : Right?

  David Letterman : One decided, I'll just wait out here in the car. Y'know? I mean...

  Roger Ebert : What is the lesson we can learn from this?

  David Letterman : Uh... I, I just think the first one, going into the theater, just to make yourself at home, I guess, I don't know, I think that's a little more peculiar than the other.

  Gene Siskel : Probably not in that theater, Dave.

  David Letterman : I guess you would know, Gene.

  [audience laughter/cheers] 

• David Letterman : What about this Hugh Grant situation? What the hell's going on there?

  Gene Siskel : Y'know, his arrest actually affected the way I viewed the movie "Nine Months". I'm watching "Nine Months", and it's supposed to be this light, breezy comedy, he's supposed to play a befuddled guy, he's blinking like some kind of innocent. And I'm thinking, "This is the guy that had to have a hooker at one in the morning down on Sunset Boulevard." He's a gorgeous guy, he's involved with a gorgeous woman, and I'm thinking, "This isn't any innocent." And I'm staring at him for about an hour and half in this picture before he apologizes for his behavior in the film, where he's cheated on his girlfriend in the film, wife in the film, and then I accepted him. But it really hurt the way I looked at the picture.

  Roger Ebert : When you see "Casablanca", does it depress you that all the people in it are dead?

  [audience laughter/cheers] 

  David Letterman : Pretty good! That was pretty good. Nice goin'.

  Roger Ebert : Point and match, I believe.

  Gene Siskel : Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

• Roger Ebert : [referencing how he, Gene and David are wearing tan suits]  It's not often that you can find a three-for-one that also includes my size.

  David Letterman : Yeah, well, FOUR-for-one.

  [audience laughter/applause]