Laughter is America’s most important export.

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

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.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

When I jumped off a roof in Cannes in a bee costume, I looked ridiculous. But this is my business; I have to humiliate myself.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them – lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.

In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

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!

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

I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.

My husband says I look like a Q-tip.

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

The greatest thing about being a comedian is knowing other comedians. And you get to talk to them. Its the most fun.

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.

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.

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

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

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

Global energy security is a vital part of America’s national security.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.

The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn’t that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I’d already been translating French poetry, I’d been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can’t even lift them.

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

My neighbor has a circular driveway… he can’t get out.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

America is the greatest country in the world.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

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

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

Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time… I think I’ve forgotten this before.

MySpace is my wife… Facebook is my mistress.

Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

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.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

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

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.

You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched. Ha ha.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

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

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

I think I have always had a little humor.

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

I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with Guess on it. I said, Thyroid problem?

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.