You have a ready wit. Tell me when it’s ready.

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

I’ve seen George Foreman shadow boxing, and the shadow won.

In the end, everything is a gag.

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.

Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‚Children’s Letters to God.‘ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‚Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.‘

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

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

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

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

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

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

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

I’m sure we, the American people, are the butt of jokes by those in power.

If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

I’m half-Irish, half-Dutch, and I was born in Belgium. If I was a dog, I’d be in a hell of a mess!

You make ‚em, I amuse ‚em.

Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.

Laughter is America’s most important export.

If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.

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.

My success comes in making fun of whatever you’re doing. That’s my way.

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.

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

There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.

Since the very beginning, Emeril’s had a sense of humor about me calling him names and poking fun at him.

My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.

There used to be an old bad joke. I hope it’s not so much a good joke anymore. ‚Everybody’s from Scranton; no one’s in Scranton.‘

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

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

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

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

Wit is educated insolence.

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ‚em up myself.

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

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

People are always asking me in interviews, ‚What do you think of foreign affairs?‘ I just say, ‚I’ve had a few.‘

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

I laugh and joke, but I don’t get distracted very easily.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

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

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.

A Jewish woman had two chickens. One got sick, so the woman made chicken soup out of the other one to help the sick one get well.

Service of any type requires preparation.

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.

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.

Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

When I’m being funny, I try not to offend. I don’t think much of what I’ve done has been in really ghastly taste. I don’t think I have embarrassed many people or distressed them.

Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.