Since childhood, I’ve been a clown. I’ve always liked being very funny or trying to make people laugh. It’s my original self.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.

There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

It’s very interesting, the joke comes first and then the wording comes within five seconds, maybe ten seconds. My thing is to get the joke across in as few words as possible. However, sometimes a word that’s not really needed does help the rhythm of it. It’s a gut feeling.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

I’m half-Irish, half-Dutch, and I was born in Belgium. If I was a dog, I’d be in a hell of a mess!

As we all know, sequels can be tricky.

Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?

Basically, I live to do gigs.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.

I get that racism exists, but it’s not a catalyst for my content. I don’t need to talk about race to have material. My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with ‚topics‘ – race, white versus black – you’re not separating from the pack. You’re doing what everybody else is doing.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

My dad was never married. He was kind of a rolling stone. But he was never disrespectful. At the same time, even though he had women in his life when I was a kid, there wasn’t any consistency.

I know I’m more on television, and I’m more recognisable than maybe even the players because they run and train, but I just stand there, and my face does all these funny things that everyone can see all the time.

I still derive immense pleasure from remembering how many hod-carrying brickies were encouraged to put on lurex tights and mince up and down the high street, having been assured by know-it-alls like me that a smidgen of blusher really attracted the birds.

When I was five – it’s not even bad – I stole a sweet from the sweet shop.

I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.

There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.

I think I have always had a little humor.

‚This guy’s a clown! He’s just all talk!‘ I’ve heard that many times in my career. And then they’re sleeping in the middle of the octagon.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mike placement, her grace, her style and her class.

Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

I am not gay, but if I were, I would be the first one running out of the closet.

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa, and every payday she’d pay a little toward the purchase.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

I’m odd looking. Sometimes I think I look like a funny muppet.

I take a lot of pride in the work I do, because people pay to see me. They’ve got to get babysitters, park their car, get popcorn and candy. I’ve got to be conscious of that.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

I’m standing behind a wall of jokes. You don’t know about my personal life, my girlfriends, or what I do when I’m not on the road. There’s this guy, this comedian, and this is how he thinks, but people really don’t know anything about me.

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

Humor is reason gone mad.

I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face. I used to chew on the end and bite it.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

I know that if I had a television in my flat I would convince myself that everything on it was really interesting. I would say, ‚I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!‘ is so sociologically fascinating that I think I’d better watch.

I often joke that 100 years from now I hope people are saying, ‚Dang, she looks good for her age!‘

My husband says I look like a Q-tip.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

I have kind of a funny relationship with movies. I don’t have to see the whole movie to get an impression of it or to let it have an influence on me.

I prefer to be in a video than to play with it.