One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn’t got any.

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.

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.

I don’t think comedy will ever die.

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.

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

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

I sing and play the guitar, and I’m a walking, talking bacterial infection.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, ‚Joey, the guy in Olyphant’s out of work, it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law’s out of work, it’s a recession. When you’re out of work, it’s a depression.‘

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out.

My doctor told me I shouldn’t work out until I’m in better shape. I told him, ‚All right; don’t send me a bill until I pay you.‘

Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

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.‘

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

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

I’ve had a lot of ridiculous haircuts.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

Which death is preferably to every other? ‚The unexpected‘.

There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

You’re not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That’s not a place for me to joke around.

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.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.

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

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.

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.

No man goes before his time – unless the boss leaves early.

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

I didn’t start sweating until I had children. That was one of the first things I realized when my daughter Violet was born – I started getting wicked BO. You know there’s a difference between basketball BO and stress BO? This was definitely stress BO. Like, new dad BO.

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.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

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

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‚President Can’t Swim.‘

I would never win an award for not loving pizza.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?

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

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.‘

I like quips. I like whiffs of cynicism and I think they can be witty. But I don’t really know where wittiness is constructive.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

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

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

I have kind of a funny relationship with movies. I don’t have to see the whole movie to get an impression of it or to let it have an influence on me.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‚Present‘ or ‚Not guilty.‘

Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the U.S. Bureau of Wild Life.

I have no problem yelling at anybody’s kid – free of charge!