When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

I was called ‚Dumbo,‘ like the elephant, as a child because I couldn’t understand things at school.

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.

Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

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

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.

If I had to describe myself to an alien I’d say I was bigger than the average human, enjoy a drink or two with a good meal and have a bigger head than most. I’d also say I’m really handsome – especially if they were a female alien.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

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.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

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.

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!

When I’m on stage, it’s really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It’s funny how different it looks and how it’s happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I’m going to get a bagel.

I wasn’t allowed to go to movies when I was kid; my father was a minister. 101 Dalmatians and King of Kings, that was the extent of it.

From my earliest childhood, my attention was specially directed to the subject of acoustics, and specially to the subject of speech, and I was urged by my father to study everything relating to these subjects, as they would have an important bearing upon what was to be my professional work.

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.

At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn’t collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.

When you’re young, you’re very reckless. Then you get conservative. Then you get reckless again.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

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

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

The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

There’s nothing like white trash at the White House.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

I was probably tall as a child, but I just stopped growing.

Growing up I didn’t watch movies.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.

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

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, ‚Yes,‘ you know he is a crook.

It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

The secret to humor is surprise.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

No sane man will dance.

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

People who can’t be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

My method of getting a play across the footlights is like a revolver shooting: every line has a bullet in it and comes with an explosion.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

I’ve found men are less likely to let petty things annoy them.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

I just think it’s so important not to take yourself too seriously.

Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.