The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

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

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

You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child… eventually.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

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.

It’s funny; recently I’ve started to notice people’s impersonations of me, and it’s basically like a hyperactive child.

Only one in four jokes ever works, and I still can’t predict what people will laugh at.

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.

Why don’t Jews drink? It interferes with their suffering.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.

Everything I say is a joke. I am a joke myself.

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

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

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

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

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 it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

I don’t think comedy will ever die.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

You look like a talent scout for a cemetery.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Take my wife… Please!

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

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

The worst way of flying, I think, is standby. It never works. That’s why they call it standby. You end up standing there going, ‚Bye!‘

I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him ‚father.‘

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.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.

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

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

When I die, I’m gonna leave my body to science fiction.

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

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.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

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

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever – one day we will overhear it.

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 particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.

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.‘

Brevity is the soul of wit.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

I’ve just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s the record.

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation.

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.