Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

I love Steve Carell.

If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Since the very beginning, Emeril’s had a sense of humor about me calling him names and poking fun at him.

If it’s a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.

How do you catch a knuckleball? You wait until it stops rolling, then go pick it up.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Wit is educated insolence.

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.

As a producer, as a CEO of Hartbeat Productions, I am making deals to put my company in place to win, to put my staff to work so that while all this stuff is going on, they’re in the kitchen cooking. So it’s understanding the longevity of the entertainment business; you get out of it what you put into it.

I don’t think comedy will ever die.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‚O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.‘ And God granted it.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

I must confess, I was born at a very early age.

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‚Did you sleep good?‘ I said ‚No, I made a few mistakes.‘

A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.

It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

Whenever I say I made a record in the garage, people just assume that I have, like, a Lear jet parked in there or something. But really there’s old luggage, a couple of bikes. It’s big enough to put one minivan in. That’s it. No dartboard. I’m so not macho.

It doesn’t matter what temperature the room is, it’s always room temperature.

I’d love to date somebody cool, fun, funny.

Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.

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.

From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.

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.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

The tradition of the South is not urban… I think we are a region of storytellers, naturally, just from our tribal instincts. We did not have the pleasures of the theater or the dance, motion pictures when they came along. We simply entertain each other by talking.

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

I hate to be smart.

I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.

I’m not a serious person, and I don’t like serious people.

As the poet said, ‚Only God can make a tree,‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

I don’t want people at my shows to come out and say, ‚I just saw a cool show.‘ I want them to say, ‚I had fun at the show.‘ I want it to be a collaborative thing and be part of the audience and have them be part of me. I try to interact with everyone there and have them be equal to me because they are.

I’m a big believer than a great bit is a great bit – if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they’re beautiful things when they’re done.

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

My kids are the funniest two human beings there are.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

I want to play a fireman and a spy. I want to learn special effects.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably ‚Doctor Who.‘ What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

I’ve got a great sense of humor.

I was very honored to get to be part of ‚American Idol.‘

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‚Where’s the self-help section?‘ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.

If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.