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

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

A doctor gave a man six months to live. The man couldn’t pay his bill, so he gave him another six months.

He is lost who is possessed by carnal desire.

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

Stand-up is hard.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

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.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

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.‘

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

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

I don’t feel that I’m explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I’m not trying to be a mirror, showing them what’s really going on the world. All I’m trying to do is think of stuff that’s funny, just like when I’m kidding around with my friends.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

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

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

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

I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.

Traveling around the world and preaching for over 70 years did not give much time for reflection.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

My husband calls me ‚catfish.‘ He says I’m all mouth and no brains.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I’m not going to freak out about it. I’m not that bad. I’m certainly not a boy, and it’s been a while since I’ve been a chef.

When someone is impatient and says, ‚I haven’t got all day,‘ I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

I often joke that 100 years from now I hope people are saying, ‚Dang, she looks good for her age!‘

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

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.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

You make ‚em, I amuse ‚em.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

In Beverly Hills… they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.

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

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.