A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

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

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

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.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

I’ve got a great sense of humor.

Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We’ve done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it’s much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it’s not only easier to use but more efficient.

You look like a talent scout for a cemetery.

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

You know what, I’m very attracted to someone who makes me laugh and is that charming. Really, I could be charmed by anyone. I’m just a sucker for somebody that is charming.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

I’ve been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she’ll kill me.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

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

You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‚See if you can blow this out.‘

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

I know I’m more on television, and I’m more recognisable than maybe even the players because they run and train, but I just stand there, and my face does all these funny things that everyone can see all the time.

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.

My husband says I look like a Q-tip.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.

I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn’t anything going on on the outside!

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.

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

People get a kick out of my stupidity.

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

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

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.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.

There’s nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, ‚Well, okay, I’m going to do something of high artistic worth.‘

I love making people laugh. And I love laughing.

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.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.

Why there is one body in our System qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason but because the Author of the System thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.

Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‚President Can’t Swim.‘

Homework’s hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, ‚Okay.‘ And then I sit down and they say, ‚It’s math.‘ ‚No! Not math! English, history, anything!‘

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It’s commenting or observing or twisting life.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

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.

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

My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.

Funny is the world I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?

I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.

I feel like I just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it.

I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I don’t like allegories.