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

I’m half-Irish, half-Dutch, and I was born in Belgium. If I was a dog, I’d be in a hell of a mess!

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

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!‘

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

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.

I’ll be like Bob Hope, touring when I’m 100.

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.‘

George Carlin’s album, ‚Class Clown,‘ came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I’d come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don’t even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.

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

We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.

People are always asking me in interviews, ‚What do you think of foreign affairs?‘ I just say, ‚I’ve had a few.‘

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

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

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

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 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.

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.

There’s different kinds of laughs. It’s like a baseball lineup: this guy’s your power hitter, this guy gets on base, this guy works out walks. If everybody does their job, we’re gonna win.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

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

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

Comedy’s about opening up and being unique, but to a point where the audience can relate to what you’re saying.

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

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

I’m sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.

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

I was always making my friends laugh, but I never wanted the attention of the whole classroom.

I now have two different audiences. There’s the one that has been watching my action films for 20 years, and the American family audience. American jokes, less fighting.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, and if I’m able to say or do something in a movie that people feel like they want to repeat, that’s hugely flattering.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

An onion can make people cry but there’s never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.

I absolutely want to have a career where you make’em laugh and make’em cry. It’s all theater.

I was training to be an electrician. I suppose I got wired the wrong way round somewhere along the line.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

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

I don’t feel that I’m explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I’m not trying to be a mirror, showing them what’s really going on the world. All I’m trying to do is think of stuff that’s funny, just like when I’m kidding around with my friends.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.

A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man.

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

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.

Why can’t I just eat my waffle?

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 tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

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

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.