I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

Why, I’d horse-whip you if I had a horse.

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.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

I remember the first time I had sex – I kept the receipt.

Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‚Children’s Letters to God.‘ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‚Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.‘

‚Discworld‘ is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

I’m an absolutely normal guy.

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

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

I am not gay, but if I were, I would be the first one running out of the closet.

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

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

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

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

In the end, everything is a gag.

I know I’m more on television, and I’m more recognisable than maybe even the players because they run and train, but I just stand there, and my face does all these funny things that everyone can see all the time.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

My comedy is different every time I do it. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

I have always had a talent for irritating women since I was fourteen.

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

But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

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.

My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.

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

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

That’s the one for my tombstone… Here lies David Byrne. Why the big suit?

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

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, ‚A house guest,‘ you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.

But, you know, it’s still a drag to get your picture taken when you’re eating a sandwich. It’s a downer.

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

Acting is a question of absorbing other people’s personalities and adding some of your own experience.

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.

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

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

It is really funny when people say you’d be obvious for a great villain.

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

Believe it or not, I make myself laugh. Sometimes when I have thoughts or say some things that are funny, it just makes me laugh, and I don’t mind laughing at it before you guys do.

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

My son complains about headaches. I tell him all the time, when you get out of bed, it’s feet first!

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

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

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

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

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

I did stand-up, weird and ignorant stuff about my career – anything for a laugh.

If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

There are people who don’t like capitalism, and people who don’t like PCs. But there’s no-one who likes the PC who doesn’t like Microsoft.