A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

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.

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

You can’t trample infidels when you’re a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

I’m still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

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

All of my writing is God-given.

Writing is like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you’ll be about what’s going to happen to it, where it’s going, what it sounds like, whether it’s right.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.

My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Maybe I’ll give Broadway a try. But you know what would be great? Hosting the Oscars. I promise you, that would be a show no one forgot.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

We must use time creatively.

I’m a painter in sound.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

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

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time… I think I’ve forgotten this before.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.

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

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

I sell escapism.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

I often look ridiculous in Japan. There’s really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

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

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

You might be the funniest guy in the world, but if you don’t have anything to talk about, people are eventually going to gravitate towards the guy that’s actually saying something.

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

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

It just seems there’s better things to do in your life than be on television if it’s not interesting, if it’s not challenging, if it’s not fun. You know? When it stops being those things for me, I’ll stop making television.

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.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

‚Educational‘ refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.

There used to be an old bad joke. I hope it’s not so much a good joke anymore. ‚Everybody’s from Scranton; no one’s in Scranton.‘

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can’t even lift them.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.