Whenever I say I made a record in the garage, people just assume that I have, like, a Lear jet parked in there or something. But really there’s old luggage, a couple of bikes. It’s big enough to put one minivan in. That’s it. No dartboard. I’m so not macho.

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

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

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

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.

Is everything funny? For me, yes. There’s a positive to every negative. Even my divorce? For me, yes. If you go back and look at it, why it happened or how it happened, there’s something in there that’ll make you laugh.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

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

I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

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

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.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

Wit is educated insolence.

Sometimes I wish my first word was ‚quote,‘ so that on my death bed, my last words could be ‚end quote.‘

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.

I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the ‚Boston Phoenix,‘ and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that’s where I first saw ‚deadpan.‘

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.‘

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

I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

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

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.

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

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

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

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

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

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

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

It doesn’t make a difference what temperature a room is, it’s always room temperature.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

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

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.

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.‘

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.

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

So many guys are so conservative with their hair, and I always joke with all my buddies when they mess with me, and I’ll say, ‚That’s right, keep the same haircut for ten years.‘ How fun is that?

I mean, families are weird.

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic – you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.

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

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

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say ‚LOL.‘ Just what? But it means ‚laugh.‘ Why don’t you just laugh? What are you doing?

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

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

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

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

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.