Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

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

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

No man goes before his time – unless the boss leaves early.

You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.

If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.

Let him that is without stone among you cast the first thing he can lay his hands on.

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.

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

I look like a woman, but I think like a man.

Someone once asked me, ‚How long does it take to do your hair.‘ I said, ‚I don’t know, I’m never there.‘

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

An unemployed court jester is nobody’s fool.

I love nerdy, cute, quirky boys who don’t take themselves too seriously.

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

I’ve got the brain of a four year old. I’ll bet he was glad to be rid of it.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

My husband calls me ‚catfish.‘ He says I’m all mouth and no brains.

People take the little bit of information they’re fed, and they draw a picture of who you are. Most of the time, it’s wrong.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

I came to America to teach my method – not to enter a research experiment.

The fact is, with every friendship you make, and every bond of trust you establish, you are shaping the image of America projected to the rest of the world. That is so important. So when you study abroad, you’re actually helping to make America stronger.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It’s literary suicide.

I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

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

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.

In 1969, I gave up women and alcohol – it was the worst 20 minutes of my life.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

In Beverly Hills… they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

You know how arrogant the French are – extraordinary.

In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.

Here in America, we don’t give in to our fears. We don’t build up walls to keep people out.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

When I die, I’m gonna leave my body to science fiction.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

My success comes in making fun of whatever you’re doing. That’s my way.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.

I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

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

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

I don’t think anybody in America ought to be scared.

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.

Chris Rock does the political thing really well, but that never worked for me.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Take my wife… Please!

I try to be funny and not ignorant.