I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

I particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

Stand-up is hard.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

Always say ‚yes‘ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‚yes‘ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

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’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.

To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

I’ve just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s the record.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I’m sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

Most of the time I don’t have much fun. The rest of the time I don’t have any fun at all.

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, ‚Joey, the guy in Olyphant’s out of work, it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law’s out of work, it’s a recession. When you’re out of work, it’s a depression.‘

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

Fear is the mother of morality.

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.

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

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

It was something I never expected to – I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

Why do Jewish men die before their wives? They want to.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair, there is no hope.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

My husband says I look like a Q-tip.

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.

I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

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

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.