Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

Never accept a drink from a urologist.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

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

I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he’s Frank and in Chicago he’s Ernest.

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

Why can’t I just eat my waffle?

You know an odd feeling? Sitting on the toilet eating a chocolate candy bar.

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

I make fun of situations and try and find the humor in things, but it’s never at the expense of the other guy.

I was a class clown. At 12, I was definitely clowning. I was making all the jokes. But I was smart, so the teachers didn’t know what to do with me.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

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

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

Don’t be getting sloppy drunk and telling them dirty jokes.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

I’ve exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

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.

Honestly, I just go to restaurants to eat so I won’t die. If there was a pill I could take in January and then I wouldn’t have to eat again for the rest of the year, I would take it. Of course, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my chocolate cake and ice cream.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

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

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

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

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

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

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!

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.

I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, ‚What for?‘ I said, ‚I’m going to buy some sugar.‘

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world… to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

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

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

Jesters do often prove prophets.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

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 was extremely lucky that I had two great wives. It sounds a bit funny to say that, but it’s absolutely true.

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

Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

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!‘

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the ‚Boston Phoenix,‘ and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that’s where I first saw ‚deadpan.‘

I think it’s funny to be delicate with subjects that are explosive.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.