25 Quotes by Caroll Spinney

Frankly, I think if I won the lottery and won a billion dollars, I'd still want to continue doing this job. I love expressing myself through it. I've gotten to really love acting. And I've gotten to know Big Bird from the inside out so thoroughly it's like playing my kid. I can't imagine deliberately stopping.

I was called such names as a kid. Being the smallest boy in the class with a name like Caroll. I remember going home and saying to my mom, 'What were you thinking?'

I was asked to be on 'The Colbert Report' last year as Big Bird and Oscar. But when we got there, we discovered they wanted both characters on at the same time. Stephen Colbert didn't know one man plays them both. We called Joey Mazzarino, our head writer, who's a very good puppeteer as well. He agreed to zip over and do Oscar.

I think there's an awful lot of me in Big Bird, but Oscar is pretty much - I think I know how he thinks because he thinks exactly the opposite of what I think is a good way to be.

You can exaggerate with puppets. You're not trying to look like real people. The way the Muppets are designed is really appealing. Puppets are best if they're exaggerated creatures.

When I was eight, I bought my first puppet. It was a monkey, and I paid five cents for it. I collected some scrap wood and built myself a puppet theatre. I made 32 cents with my first show, which I thought was pretty good, and that's when I knew I would be a puppeteer when I grew up.

Big Bird went through his very human kind of struggles as a child. No other children's character has been that complete and detailed.

Big Bird is based on what I learned as a child.

I see no reason to quit. I can't imagine walking away from being Big Bird. I mean, that's an awfully good job that there's not too many of them. So I just want to keep doing it till I can't do it anymore.