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

When I get on a roll with something, it’s really hard for me to put it down unfinished.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

I’ve always put everybody else’s child first before my own health, before my own outfit, before my own time frame.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

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 you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

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.

The Internet is a big distraction.

Time is bunk.

Too many people treat parenting like it’s the 20th item on their to-do list.

We’re a phenomenally snobby society, and it’s such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

I laugh all the time – at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don’t laugh onstage because then it’s serious business.

Tell me I have to be somewhere, and I’ll be there 20 minutes early and stay there longer than anybody else. You hold up a lot of people if you’re not on time.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

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.‘

The gods too are fond of a joke.

I was kind of secretly hoping one of my kids would go out and make a million bucks. So when they put me in a home, at least I’ll have a window with a view.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.

Well, I’m working all the time to stay out of trouble!

Life well spent is long.

Managers today have to do more with less, and get better results from limited resources, more than ever before.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, ‚Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.‘

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

There’s many a man has more hair than wit.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

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.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Time is the least thing we have of.

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

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and… the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?

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

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

I’m a meathead, man. You’ve got smart people, and you’ve got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.

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

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

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

Contrary to reports, this boy is not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle… and not just in the sense of money, by the way; the Beatles are untouchable – those billionaire reports are a joke.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.