A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

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

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

I’m a pretty funny guy, and I would love to do a comedy with a bunch of funny guys – movie-star guys, where they could help me through it.

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

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

You’re not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That’s not a place for me to joke around.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child… eventually.

I must have read every issue of ‚Punch‘ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‚Three Men in a Boat.‘

If I had never ventured beyond being a stand-up comic, then I would be sitting in my house today working on my Leonardo DiCaprio impression.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever – one day we will overhear it.

My son complains about headaches. I tell him all the time, when you get out of bed, it’s feet first!

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

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.

There was a time when people said, ‚Jim, if you keep on making faces, your face will freeze like that.‘ Now they just say, ‚Pay him!‘

I’ve been doing comedy longer than I haven’t been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on ‚The Tonight Show.‘ There’s truly nothing like it; it’s intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.

Some sarcasm is best told simply.

I’ll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

Every once in a while I get the highly inappropriate proposal which is like, ‚Wow, Really! You don’t even know me and I don’t know you at all, and you want that to happen? Tonight? Ok, I get off work at 7.30.‘

You look like a talent scout for a cemetery.

A lot of truth is said in jest.

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

The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.

I did stand-up, weird and ignorant stuff about my career – anything for a laugh.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‚Children’s Letters to God.‘ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‚Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.‘

Teach a parrot the terms ‚supply and demand‘ and you’ve got an economist.

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

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

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I’m not going to freak out about it. I’m not that bad. I’m certainly not a boy, and it’s been a while since I’ve been a chef.

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

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 won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.

Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it’s dangerous.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

Politics is applesauce.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

My mother is from another time – the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that’s what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I know if I wasn’t her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going.

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

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

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

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

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

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

You know, crankiness is at the essence of all comedy.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

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

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

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.