I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‚O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.‘ And God granted it.

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.

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

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

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

The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‚we.‘

Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

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

I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help – and God’s.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

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

As the poet said, ‚Only God can make a tree,‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

I always ask God to work through me and let me be a light of some kind and help in this world, so I always pray for that, and I always want to do good.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house, that’s what it means.

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.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.

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!

When I’m on stage, it’s really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It’s funny how different it looks and how it’s happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I’m going to get a bagel.

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

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don’t do any good, but they don’t necessarily do any harm. It’s touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I’ve got my just desserts.

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

It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

When I was with Andy Warhol, I thought, ‚God, his wig looks cheaper than mine!‘

It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

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.

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

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.

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.

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic – you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

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

Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

I hate to be smart.

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.

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

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

Until you pray, God cannot work.

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.‘

Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, ‚Well, good on you. See you there.‘

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

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