It’s nice to be here. When you’re 99 years old, it’s nice to be anywhere.

George Burns (1896–1996) built a late-career persona around genial, self-deprecating jokes about longevity, continuing to perform and make public appearances well into his nineties. The line “It’s nice to be here. When you’re 99 years old, it’s nice to be anywhere” reflects that stage patter: a warm greeting that pivots into a punchline about the sheer good fortune of still being alive at an advanced age. Burns frequently opened or punctuated interviews and appearances with quips of this kind, using his age as both comic material and a way to connect with audiences who marveled at his continued vitality.

The joke works by undercutting a conventional pleasantry (“nice to be here”) with a blunt perspective shaped by extreme old age: at 99, the value of any particular venue diminishes compared to the simple fact of being present at all. Beneath the humor is a stoic gratitude—life itself becomes the occasion worth celebrating. Burns’s line also exemplifies his comic method: turning a potentially morbid topic (mortality) into an affectionate, disarming observation that invites laughter while acknowledging the precariousness of continued existence.