Archive for: United States

Quotes about life and comedy

• Comedy is not pretty.
• I am a wild and crazy guy!
• Be so good they can’t ignore you.
• It’s pain that changes our lives.
• Be so good they can’t ignore you.
• So, I can hurt now, or hurt later.
• No art comes from the conscious mind.
• Nothing I do is done by popular demand.
• There are few takers for the quiet heart.
• Love is a promise delivered already broken.
• Comedy may be big business but it isn’t pretty.
• Always make room for the unexpected in yourself.
• Relationships end, but they don’t end your life.
• A joke that works is complete knowledge in a nanosecond.
• Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.
• You can’t really conduct your life by one or two phrases.
• When you’re reaching for a star, there’s a long way to fall.
• Writing is extremely personal, and that’s the joy of it for me.
• It was essential that I never show doubt about what I was doing.
• If I screw up raising my kids, nothing I achieve will matter much.
• I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct.
• Introductions are hard to come by when your natural state is shyness
• I’ve heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.
• You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do.
• The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer.
• Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
• What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
• With comedy, you have no place to go but more comedy, so you’re never off the hook.
• The presence of excessive wealth puts an unnatural spin on the appreciation of art.
• The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.
• Lots of women are getting involved. They’re not satisfied just being passengers anymore.
• Comedy makes you humble. Because there are so many opportunities to miss, and strike out.
• Comedy is a distortion of what is happening, and there will always be something happening.
• I have found that– just as in real life–imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.
• She tried to get even with him through psychological warfare but couldn’t, because he didn’t care.
• My problem is that I don’t get the same exhiliration from success as I get depression from failure.
• If you feel tired midway through, give Neil Patrick Harris a Red Bull and throw some sheet music at him.
• I really enjoy finding the right word, creating a good, flowing sentence. I enjoy the rhythm of the words.
• There’s no better way to learn something than to learn it in front of an audience. Your terror drives you.
• I was very vulnerable to criticism for many years. I could read a bad review and remember it my whole life.
• I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you’re an idiot.
• Romance takes place when you first fall in love. It stirs all emotions and you can manipulate and be manipulated.
• I was always very shy but as I get older I think, What am I being shy for? You just grow weary of your own hang-ups.
• I was not naturally talented. I didn’t sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.
• College totally changed my life. It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy.
• I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point.
• You cannot make your opportunities concur with the opportunities of people whose incomes are ten times greater than yours.
• Awards mean nothing to comedians. What matters is the audience, how you’re doing – artistically, for the most part – at that moment.
• I’m always looking for something to engage my imagination and take me on a little mental voyage. I just want a new topic in my life.
• To me, torture would be, “I can’t think what to write in the next sentence. I’m stuck.” Torture would be if you didn’t have the next idea.
• You know when you’re telling these little stories? Here’s a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!
• I don’t really manage my time. I really just wait until I’m inspired to do something. And when I’m inspired to do something, it just happens.
• Acting is collaborative because you are working with another actor, and it’s almost like a two-man juggling team. You have to really be in sync.
• Whether I’m involved in creating something or not, it’s a personal issue of do I respect it. But you can only know that five or ten years later.
• The course was more plodding than heroic: I did not strive valiantly against doubters but took incremental steps studded with a few intuitive leaps.
• You can’t make something beautiful by trying to make something beautiful. Something becomes beautiful in the process of trying to be something else.
• You have to get comfortable [with your work], you really have to know what you’re doing, and it has to be almost boring to you to be able to do it well.
• It’s funny that some ideas start with a little “What if?” and then suddenly you’re spending a million dollars to shoot the scene and hoping that it works.
• Relationships end, but they don’t end your life. But people do often spending more time finding out about failed relationships than finding successful ones.
• Always do business as if the person you’re doing business with is trying to screw you, because he probably is. And if he’s not, you can be pleasantly surprised.
• You know, there’s a moment when you’re famous when it’s unbearable to go out because you’re too famous. And then there’s a moment when you’re famous just right.
• …it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.
• It [live performance] is just very difficult. Doing an hour, hour and a half of live standup is an endurance test. You almost have to do it every day to stay up on it.
• What means the most to me changes through the years. There was a time when movies meant the most. But when I’m concentrating on a project, that’s what means the most to me.
• Writing is something I took up rather than anything I had an inclination toward. I like acting -delivering someone else’s message – but writing is more of an accomplishment.
• I don’t think comic timing is the same as music timing, but I definitely find that I’ve learned from just writing in general that songs can be narrative without having a story.
• I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is someway.
• If you’re studying Geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but Philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.
• The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.
• Reviews for someone like me come in three packages. One is justifiable praise, the second is justifiable criticism, and the third is, “This is only published because he’s a celebrity.”
• Home to me is when someone comes up to me and says, “Can I get a selfie?” No. It’s where your wife and your family are. It’s the emotional place where you feel like you’re not away from it.
• I’m enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.
• Acting keeps me alert to people, and life. I don’t know, there’s something about going to work early in the morning, and having to stay alert and concentrated. Maybe that keeps your mind alive.
• I try not to think about legacy because it is all folly. If you study history, even recent history, you’ll find many people who were quite significant in their time but are completely forgotten.
• With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you have no idea if it’s going to work. And then you get the response. It’s great when it’s good.
• I just wanted to be in show business. I didn’t care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
• I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.
• I just don’t identify myself with a place. I just don’t get it. Like, why am I cheering for this town? Towns are good and bad but they don’t have principles, constitutions. You wouldn’t go to war for your town.
• I think films are about having a good time, so I don’t know that there’s a message. The message of a film is always what a critic writes, and the fun of a film or the emotion of a film is what the audience feels.
• Acting has helped me understand people, not only because you are acting as a character, but also because you are watching other actors work. That really helps you identify in life when someone is acting, not being true.
• A friend of mine once asked how to make it in show business and I said “Be so good that they can’t ignore you.” She thought I was being flip but it’s true. The challenge is trying to live up to the opportunities given me.
• When people ask me, ‘how do you make it in show business,’ or whatever, what I always tell them‚ and nobody ever takes note of it,cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear‚ but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’
• I’ve run into people in my life who were so dramatic; people who are so extreme and so frustrating to be around that you end up thinking about them and talking about them for literally years after your experience with them is over.
• There’s a lot of thought in art. People get to talk about important things. There’s a lot of sex, you know, in art. There’s a lot of naked women and men, and there’s intrigue, there’s fakery. It’s a real microcosm of the larger world.
• The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer. And the joy of writing, when you’re writing from your subconscious, is beautiful – it’s thrilling. When you’re editing, which is your conscious mind, it’s like torture.
• I choose a project based on whether it feels worthwhile working on when it comes to me. But secondly I choose it if it sounds like fun. Projects are determined by just how they strike me at the moment, as they have done throughout my whole life.
• I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.
• As a human being on Earth, you can’t imagine friendship not being important in some other solar system or some other planet, or some other context of beings that are conscious. We even see it in animals. It is important for people on Earth to reach out or reach into someone.
• I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man’s way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you’ve got an act.
• I would say the three stages of making a film are the initial ‘are we gonna do this,’ ‘how much will I be paid,’ is there a lot of nights, who’s it going to be with? The second stage of doing a film is how much fun your going to have doing it. The third stage is was the film a hit?
• I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I’m sure that’s some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there’s a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.
• I knew I wanted to be in show business so I took the path of least resistance. I loved comedy. But you never know you are funny until people laugh. It’s just what I was interested in. I could make people laugh, I guess, but doing it at school and doing it onstage are very different things.
• What I mean is that none of my talents had a – what’s that great word – rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer – there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I’m a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.
• In a strange way, I don’t have a job, so I have a lot of time on my hands. When I do work, it might be very concentrated, and it might be months where you’re not really doing anything except maybe playing the banjo or writing something. You know, there’s a lot of time in the day if you’re not working 9 to 5.
• I don’t think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You’re always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it’ll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it’s always meant to be something. So, to me, there’s no practicing; there’s only editing and publishing or not publishing.
• No matter how many times people say it – ‘Oh, I’m just writing this for myself’ ‘Oh, I’m just doing this for myself’ – nobody’s doing it for themselves! You’re doing it for an audience. So whether I’m performing or writing a book or playing music, it’s definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way, definitely.
• My fear represented the failure of the human system. It is a sad truth of our creation: Something is amiss in our design, there are loose ends of our psychology that are simply not wrapped up. My fears were the dirty secrets of evolution. They were not provided for, and I was forced to construct elaborate temples to house them.
• Your only guidepost is your own instinct and judicious editing. In my stand-up act I learned that in the first 10 minutes I could say anything and it would get a laugh. Then I’d better deliver. In the movie it’s the same thing. You get a lot of laughs when people first sit down and then the story better kick in. Many years in front of an audience, I would hope, give me a sense of what works.
• My most persistent memory of stand – up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare – enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.
• I take editing seriously. It’s a joy to edit. I always hand a manuscript to several editors and can’t wait to get back their notes and see what they’ve said. I don’t criticize myself for making blunders here and there, because it’s just natural. You write in chunks, and you may not remember that that sentence you wrote yesterday had the same word repeated three times. I do enjoy that. I love the feeling of repairing. Repairing is really nice.

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On a lighter note

• She was feeling her bohemian oats.
• … you’re nuts but you’re welcome here.
• I’m hello, and I’d like to say myself.
• A day with out sun shine is like……….night
• A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
• It’s not tipping I believe in. It’s overtipping.
• Teaching is, after all, a form of show business.
• All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.
• All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.
• Women have choices, and men have responsibilities.
• …teaching is, after all, a form of show business.
• Finally, we do become wise, but then it’s too late.
• The greatest thing you can do is surprise yourself.
• How many people have never raised their hand before?
• A father carries pictures where his money used to be.
• I got a flue shot and now my chimney works perfectly.
• It’s not what you know, it’s what you think you know.
• Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
• Thankfully, perseverance is a good substitute for talent.
• I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.
• Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.
• How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars
• Boy, those French: they have a different word for everything!
• A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
• I’m tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.
• The operation was a success, but I’m afraid the doctor is dead.
• Knowledge of means without knowledge of ends is animal training.
• You kill me and I’ll see that you never work in this town again.
• Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
• Were they beautiful? We were all beautiful. We were in our twenties.
• We’ve had some fun tonight…considering we’re all gonna die someday.
• All I’ve ever wanted was an honest week’s pay for an honest day’s work.
• I just gave my cat a bath. Now how do I get all this fur off my tounge?
• I started a grease fire at McDonald’s – threw a match in the cook’s hair.
• To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American.
• You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.
• I’ve got to keep breathing. It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t.
• It’s not the size of the nose that matters, it’s what’s inside that counts.
• Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way.
• Somewhere in the world is…The world’s worst doctor and he could be yours.
• I’ve decided to take up smoking, my doctor said I wasn’t getting enough tar.
• I can’t smell moth balls, I find it too difficult to get their tiny legs apart
• I just downloaded eleven hundred books onto my Kindle, and now I can’t lift it.
• I was deeply unhappy, but I didn’t know it because I was so happy all the time.
• I will do anything to look like him – except, of course, exercise or eat right.
• When someone less capable is ahead of me, I am not pleased. It makes me insane.
• She had destroyed whatever was between us by making a profound gaffe: She met me.
• I cannot smell mothballs because it’s so difficult to get their little legs apart.
• First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.
• I could never be a woman, ’cause I’d just stay home and play with my breasts all day.
• I’m not trying to be a big shot or anything like that, but I get my drinks half price.
• I guess I wouldn’t believe in anything if it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch.
• I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.
• Halle Berry is here, whose win last year broke down barriers for unbelievably hot women.
• Dinosaurs did not walk with humans. The evolutionary record says different. They gambled.
• Talent is the ability to say things well, but genius is the ability to, well, say things.
• These days it’s hard to look at a poodle without thinking what a good meal he would make.
• You know, you’re really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.
• Don’t have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.
• So, while fitting in, she was like a wicked detail standing out against a placid background.
• I believe you should place a woman on a pedestal: high enough so you can look up  her dress.
• I never touched a gun in my life. That and that alone forever doomed me to middle management.
• I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.
• I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy.
• Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.
• I guess I wouldn’t believe in anything anymore if it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch.
• I have found that– just as in real life–imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience.
• I have decided to give the greatest performance of my life! Oh, wait, sorry, that’s tomorrow night.
• I believe Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was… an Arctic region covered with ice.
• When I die, now don’t think that I’m a nut, don’t want no fancy funeral, just one like old King Tut.
• The Apple Pie Hubbub was a significant novel for me, because that’s when I first started using verbs.
• An apology? Bah! Disgusting! Cowardly! Beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however wrong he might be.
• I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them.
• People come up to me and say “Steve, what is film editing?” And I say “How should I know? You’re the director.
• The banjo is such a happy instrument–you can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.
• There’s someone out there for everyone – even if you need a pickaxe, a compass, and night goggles to find them.
• A celebrity is any well-known TV or movie star who looks like he spends more than two hours working on his hair.
• With a cheery delicacy she divided my obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious.
• How is it possible to miss a woman whom you kept at a distance, so that when she was gone you would not miss her?
• I handed in a script last year and the studio didn’t change one word. The word they didn’t change was on page 87.
• I believe in eight of the ten commandments. I believe in going to church every Sunday… unless there’s a game on.
• Lacy was just as happy alone as with company. When she was alone, she was potential; with others she was realized.
• There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won’t stand for that.
• The self-prepared dinner is a great time killer for lonely people and as much time should be spent on it as possible.
• Hollywood must be the only place on earth where you can be fired by a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap.
• Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It’s something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.
• He never complicates a desire by overthinking it, unlike Mirabelle, who spins a cocoon around an idea until it is immobile.
• You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.
• Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.
• I believe the United States should allow all foreigners in this country, provided they can speak our native language… Apache.
• I’ve put an umbrella in my mouth and opened it. I sat in a lemon-meringue pie. I’ve done terrible things to my dog with a fork.
• What is a movie star? A movie star is many things. They can be tall, short, thin, or skinny. They can be Democrats… or skinny.
• You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, ‘This is art, and you can’t do it.
• Yeah, well, we’re all writers, aren’t we? He’s a writer that hasn’t been published, and I’m a writer who hasn’t written anything.
• …the divided world of Aspen, where locals with a sense of entitlement were pitted against developers with a sense of condominiums.
• Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.
• Anyone who’s ever worked with Meryl Streep always says the same thing: can that woman act! And what’s with all the Hitler memorabilia?
• I opened the show with this line: “I have decided to give the greatest performance of my life! Oh, wait, sorry, that’s tomorrow night.
• I’m for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
• Kids like my act because I’m wearing nose glasses. Adults like my act because there’s a guy who thinks putting on nose glasses is funny.
• She has learned that her body is precious and it mustn’t be offered carelessly ever again, as it holds a direct connection to her heart.
• There are some people that will not pick up a phone and call you, but if you knock on a door and talk to them, they’ll talk back to you.
• There is something going on now in Mexico that I happen to think is cruelty to animals. What I’m talking about, of course, is cat juggling.
• I couldn’t see his face, because the light came in from behind him and he was in shadow, and he said, “I am Picasso.” And I said, “Well, so what?
• The only thing that bothers me is if I’m in a restaurant and I’m eating and someone says, ‘Hey, mind if I smoke?’ I always say, ‘No. Mind if I fart?
• Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus. Be dull and boring and omnipresent. Criticize things you don’t know about. Be oblong and have your knees removed.
• Now let’s repeat the non-conformists’ oath: I promise to be different! I promise to be unique! I promise not to repeat things other people say! Good!
• Tweeting is really only good for one thing – it’s just good for tweeting… It is rewarding, because it’s just its own reward. It’s sort of like heaven.
• The thing about the banjo is when you first hear it, it strikes many people as what’s that? There’s something very compelling about it to certain people.
• I gave my cat a bath the other day…they love it. He sat there, he enjoyed it, it was fun for me. The fur would stick to my tongue, but other than that…
• I happened to take a photo, and there was my wife, my dog and my banjo, all in the same shot – and I thought, “Oh, that’s like a family portrait right there.”
• Be tasteless, rude, and offensive, Live in a swamp and be three dimensional, Put a live chicken in your underwear, Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.
• I have no fear, no fear at all. I wake up, and I have no fear. I go to bed without fear. Fear, fear, fear, fear. Yes, ‘fear’ is a word that is not in my vocabulary.
• I saw the movie, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and was surprised because I didn’t see any tigers or dragons. And then I realized why: they’re crouching and hidden.
• She didn’t even finish her last sentence; it just trailed off. I think the subject had changed in her head while her mouth had continued on the old topic, not realizing it was out of supplies.
• A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred.
• I used to think a wedding was a simple affair. Boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say I do. I was wrong. That’s getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition.
• In talking to girls I could never remember the right sequence of things to say. I’d meet a girl and say, Hi, was it good for you too? If a girl spent the night, I’d wake up in the morning and then try to get her drunk.
• I actually learned about sex watching neighborhood dogs. And it was good. Go ahead and laugh. I think the most important thing I learned was: Never let go of the girl’s leg, no matter how hard she tries to shake you off.
• I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too.
• His view of the world is one that keeps his blood pressure low, sweeping the cholesterol from his relaxed, freeway-sized arteries. Everyone knows he is going to live till age ninety, although the question that goes begging is, what?
• If you’ve got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you’ve got 71 cents left; But if you’ve got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you’ve still got seventeen grand. There’s a math lesson for you.
• You know, a lot of people come to me and they say, “Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?” There’s a secret to it, it’s no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I’m on stage, I feel funny.
• I would like a wine. The purpose of the wine is to get me drunk. A bad wine will get me as drunk as a good wine. I would like the good wine. And since the result is the same no matter which wine I drink, I’d like to pay the bad wine price.
• I would assign every lie a color: yellow when they were innocent, pale blue when they sailed over you like the sky, red because I knew they drew blood. And then there was the black lie. That’s the worst of all. A black lie was when I told you the truth.
• When I first started doing my stand-up act, I played the banjo, did comedy, magic tricks, juggled, read poetry. I stuck it all in. I didn’t know you were supposed to just stand up and tell jokes. Essentially, that’s what my act became: those five elements – except I dropped the poetry.
• I studied with the Maharishi for many years, and really didn’t learn that much. But one thing that he taught me, I’ll never forget: ‘ALWAYS…’ no, wait– ‘NEVER…’ no, wait, it was ‘ALWAYS carry a litter bag in your car. It doesn’t take up much room, and if it gets full, you can toss it out the window.’
• Communication has changed so rapidly in the last 20 years, it’s almost impossible to predict what might occur even in the next decade. E-mail, which now sends data hurtling across vast distances at the speed of light, has replaced primitive forms of communication such as smoke signals, which sent data hurtling across vast distances at the speed of light.
• It’s so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It’s like, religion, you really can’t take it seriously, ’cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn’t believe in anything if it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch.
• I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, midevening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-midafternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . But never at dusk!

More serious quotes

• Be prepared for luck.
• Reality: What a concept!
• It’s cheaper to keep her.
• Comedy is acting out optimism.
• Even mistakes can be wonderful.
• Comedy is acting out of optimism.
• I feel like I’m a big human snot.
• Carpe per diem – seize the check.
• The only weapon we have is comedy.
• When in doubt, go for the dick joke.
• A place where we all go can’t be bad.
• Don’t mess with me, man, I’m a lawyer!
• Keating: Carpe Diem! Sieze the day!
• Cricket is basically baseball on valium.
• Make your life spectacular, I know I did.
• My comedy is like emotional hang-gliding.
• Go pump some neurons. Expand your craniums
• I love kids, but they are a tough audience.
• There are no rules. Just follow your heart.
• A human life is just a heartbeat in heaven.
• You have to break in half to love somebody.
• I only ever play Vegas one night at a time.
• Seize the day. Make your life extraordinary.
• Ronald Reagan is the world’s largest Muppet.
• The idea of having a steady job is appealing.
• Comedy pays the bills if I can’t find a film.
• For a while you get mad, then you get over it.
• I don’t do well with snakes, and I can’t dance.
• Being alone onstage is like legalized insanity.
• Dreams don’t deal in time. Time doesn’t count.
• I know size can be daunting but don’t be afraid.
• I’m sorry, if you were right, I’d agree with you.
• Three wishes – no substitutes, exchanges or refunds
• Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready.’
• The world is your oyster. Never stop trying new things.
• I was a serious method actor until I visited this site.
• Nobody takes a picture of something they want to forget.
• The things we fear the most have already happened to us.
• Imagining something is better than remembering something.
• There’s a world out there. Open a window, and it’s there.
• There’s a world out there. Open a window, and it’s there.
• Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.
• What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.
• What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.
• Anything that is not funny at a certain point will be funny.
• We used to be hunter-gatherers, now we’re shopper-borrowers.
• In America, they really do mythologize people when they die.
• The truth is, if anything, I’m probably addicted to laughter.
• Oh, no. To live… to live would be an awfully big adventure.
• The truth is, if anything, I’m probably addicted to laughter.
• You’re best when you’re not in charge. The ego locks the muse.
• Do you think God gets stoned? I think so… look at the platypus.
• With a bike you go from zero to a hundred in terms of mobility.
• You’re going to the cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian
• Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.
• I was an only child. I did have kind of like a lonely existence.
• You’re still young. Being a true loser takes years of inaptitude
• You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
• You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.
• Good people end up in Hell because they can’t forgive themselves.
• The meek may inherit the earth, but they don’t get in to Harvard.
• Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death.
• There’s no question this is where I want to live. Never has been.
• But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
• I used food to make myself feel better, but I felt worse when I ate.
• No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
• Compassionate conservative, that’s like having a gun rack on a Volvo.
• What’s true in our minds is true, whether some people know it or not.
• Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all of its students.
• You need a touch of madness, just enough that you don’t become stupid!
• All you have to do is think one happy thought, and you’ll fly like me.
• I’m history! No, I’m mythology! Nah, I don’t care what I am, I’m free!
• What some folks call impossible is just stuff they haven’t seen before.
• If we were interested in making money, we wouldn’t have become teachers.
• Stop being afraid of getting older. With age comes wisdom and confidence.
• You know what music is – a harmonic connection between all living beings.
• I think it’s great when stories are dark and strange and weirdly personal.
• I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.
• I think it’s great when stories are dark and strange and weirdly personal.
• If heaven exists, to know that there’s laughs, that would be a great thing.
• The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.
• If heaven exists, to know that there are laughs, that would be a great thing.
• Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.
• It doesn’t matter who you are, if you’ve got the legs, you can hang with them.
• Sometimes it’s more noble to tell a small lie than to deliver a painful truth.
• Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.
• When you have a great audience, you can just keep going and finding new things.
• Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself.
• I learned that by being entertaining you make a connection with another person.
• There’s no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot.
• The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.
• The sort of liveliness which increases with age is not far distant from madness.
• Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public.
• There is no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot.
• As an alcoholic, you will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them.
• You’d think all of these “atypical” somethings would add up to a typical something
• Being in the same room with people and creating something together is a good thing.
• People say satire is dead. It’s not dead; it’s alive and living in the White House.
• People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, ‘I don’t have that button.’
• The world is open for play, everything and everybody is mockable in a wonderful way.
• If women ran the world, we wouldn’t have wars… just intense negotiations every 28 days.
• Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like Nascar drivers. Then we know who owns them.
• Kid, if You Need Booze or Drugs to Enjoy Your Life to the Fullest, You’re Doing It Wrong.
• Sometimes you got to specifically go out of your way to get into trouble. It’s called fun.
• Gentlemen, haven’t we learned anything from the music of John Lennon? All we need is love.
• The world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way.
• Crying never helped anybody do anything, okay? You have a problem, you face it like a man.
• Sometimes, you got to specifically go out of your way to get into trouble. It’s called fun.
• But only in their dreams can men be truly free. It was always thus and always thus will be.
• Explore an idea until you’ve exhausted it, really go to all the different parameters of it.
• I don’t practice anything. I spend time looking over ideas and then just get out and do it.
• Self-reliance is the key to a vigorous life. A man must look inward to find his own answers.
• You’ve got to be crazy! It’s too late to be sane, too late. You’ve got to go full-tilt bozo.
• A hungry stomach, an empty wallet, and a broken heart can teach you the best lessons of life.
• Self-reliance is the key to a vigorous life. A man must look inward to find his own answers.
• I just want to do movies, and I want to sell them. I don’t want to link up with some product.
• I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.
• I do believe in love. It’s wonderful, especially love third time around; it’s even more precious.
• My favorite thing to do is ride a bicycle. I ride road bikes. And for me, it’s mobile meditation.
• Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but when it does, it’s like open-field running.
• What’s my credibility? Why are they looking to me for advice? Isn’t there someone more qualified?
• If you don’t keep pushing the limits, you wake up one day and you’re the “center square to block.”
• When I’m riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence
• To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.
• Comedy is there to basically show us we fart, we laugh, to make us realize we still are part animal.
• A friend is someone who listens to your bullshit, tells you that it’s bullshit, and listens some more.
• If we’re going to fight a disease, let’s fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.
• Sometimes you can have a whole lifetime in a day and never notice that this is a beautiful as it gets.
• She is not perfect. You are not perfect. The question is whether or not you are perfect for each other
• See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.
• Sometimes you can have a whole lifetime in a day and never notice that this is as beautiful as it gets.
• You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.
• You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.
• I love doing live action movies, but there’s a great job in doing animation, especially one with music.
• There is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.
• After I quit drinking, I realized I am the same asshole I always was; I just have fewer dents in my car.
• You can start any ‘Monty Python’ routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.
• There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.
• Sometimes with a comedy it’s just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.
• I want everyone out there in TV land to touch the TV. Touch the back of the TV and get a shock for Jesus.
• Please, don’t worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting.
• Gradual school is where you go to school and you gradually find out you don’t want to go to school anymore.
• But if there’s love, dear… those are the ties that bind, and you’ll have a family in your heart, forever.
• On stage you’re free. You can say and do things that if you said and did any place else, you’d be arrested.
• My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings.
• To make fun of an administration, to make fun of anything, Mark Twain said, is the last defense of democracy.
• I’ve always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.
• There’s this thing called freebasing. It’s not free, it costs you your home. It should be called ‘homebasing’.
• It was kind of a decompression – from straight alcohol to mixed drinks to wine to spritzers – and then you’re out.
• You have an internal critic, an internal drive that says, ‘OK, you can do more.’ Maybe that’s what keeps you going.
• You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.
• It’s always great when you want scientific fact to get a really good science fiction writer to talk to you about it.
• We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.
• If you’re that depressed, reach out to someone. And remember, suicide is a permanent solution, to a temporary problem.
• If you want to die, don’t make a mistake and not quite kill yourself because the medical bills in America are hideous.
• I have no desire to go anywhere near drugs. People say, “Aren’t you tempted?” No, because of the ridiculousness of it.
• If there was a pill that allowed you to drink and not get drunk, an alcoholic would go “What happens if you take two?”
• Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.
• I do believe in love; it’s wonderful – especially love third time around, it’s even more precious; it’s kind of amazing.
• Women are wonderful. They’re amazing creatures. You can never learn enough! They’re addicting in the most amazing sense.
• I can be trained, I can actually show you how intelligent I am, I can use a word like delicatessen and know what it means.
• The Second Amendment! It says you have the right to bear arms, or the right to arm bears, whatever the hell you want to do!
• On rides you see things that trigger ideas. And most the time it’s just not doing anything but riding … letting it all go.
• Boys, you must strive to find your own voice, because the longer you wait to begin the less likely you are to find it at all.
• In down times I do things like go for a long bike ride or run. The other thing I’m doing in that quiet time is just observing.
• If I ever asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked a woman and been totally vulnerable.
• I’ve actually gone to the zoo and had monkeys shout to me from their cages, “I’m in here when you’re walking around like that?”
• Shooting in New York is the shiznit, if I may be so bold. It was great. New York is a character. People who live here know that.
• There are times when life’s just real quiet and simple. I sometimes get tired of people saying, “Well, what are you really like?”
• Humor is a great defense, and an offense too. Usually the recipient isn’t too happy about it, but the people around are laughing.
• Women are incredibly intuitive. If anybody on the planet is going to evolve to the next level, that telekinetic thing, women will.
• I try to make sense of things. Which is why, I guess, I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be.
• I love to ride my bike, which is great aerobics, but also just a great time for me to think, so it’s like this terrific double bill.
• I never performed on drugs. That’d be stupid. It’s the same thing with athletes. They can’t perform when they have cocaine problems.
• The great thing about marriage is the idea of really getting to know someone. And really getting to know a woman is a life long task.
• When I find out a hotel doesn’t have a DSL, it’s like “What? There’s no toilet?” Once you get used to high speed you ain’t going back
• Friends come in all sizes, take it from me! Golly gee, size doesn’t matter, when you want some friendly patter from a pal who is true.
• Seize the day. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.
• We have a president for whom English is a second language. He’s like ‘We have to get rid of dictators,’ but he’s pretty much one himself.
• Women have so many levels. There’s the physical level, which is a lot of fun. There’s this emotional level, which is extremely mercurial.
• I met Jonah Lomu. I never knew how huge he was. I felt like a peasant in a Godzilla movie. ‘Quickly! Tell the other villagers! We go now!’
• Just now when I said, “I have a crush on you,” you didn’t say, “no way loser”. I’d rather have a lobotomy by a leper. That means something
• The Chinese had accused the Tibetans of being terrorists, which is weird. A Tibetan terrorist is like an Amish hacker. It just doesn’t fit.
• My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There’s an energy. It’s live theater. That’s why I think actors like that.
• Don’t associate yourself with toxic people. It’s better to be alone and love yourself than surrounded by people that make you hate yourself.
• Don’t associate yourself with toxic people. It’s better to be alone and love yourself than surrounded by people that make you hate yourself.
• There’s three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.
• There are three things in this world that you need: respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.
• I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.
• Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
• It’s that idea that you can have one drink – and no you can’t. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, ‘Wow.’
• A lot of celebrities golf because they want to be away. For them it’s a chance to get away and be peaceful. For me it’s peaceful to ride [cycling].
• I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.
• I don’t have a college degree, and my father didn’t have a college degree, so when my son, Zachary, graduated from college, I said, “My boy’s got learnin’!”
• Change is not popular; we are creatures of habit as human beings. ‘I want it to be the way it was.’ But if you continue the way it was there will be no ‘is.’
• Change is not popular; we are creatures of habits as human beings. ‘I want it to be the way it was.’ But if you continue the way it was there will be no ‘is.’
• As intellectual as we think we are, you still trip, we still have human foibles, sexuality, all the different things to still make you aware of your humanity.
• The human spirit is more powerful than any drug, and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter.
• The human spirit is more powerful than any drug – and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter.
• Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it ‘all the money,’ but they changed it to ‘alimony.’ It’s ripping your heart out through your wallet.
• Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, ‘Wonderful. Just have a backup profession like welding.’
• Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, ‘Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.’
• Terrible wars have been fought where millions have died for one idea – freedom. And it seems that something that means so much to so many people would be worth having.
• Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down. Sometimes it made me paranoid and impotent, but mostly it just made me withdrawn.
• My battles with addiction definitely shaped how I am now. They really made me deeply appreciate human contact. And the value of friends and family, how precious that is.
• It is hard to find something where you can go off as much as I do in stand-up, but I think stand-up allows me that freedom where you can really go off and have a good time.
• If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it?  Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.
• Cable is not bound because people pay for it. It’s literally a choice, that’s the operative word. If you don’t like the language, if cocksucker offends you, then turn it off.
• It’s been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together.
• I had one or two steady girlfriends in high school, but then in college, it was three, four… I went crazy. At one point I had three separate girlfriends, running around mad.
• You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars.
• I’ve never had a “hankering” to direct. I can perform, but I can’t write on that level. I tend to go off on tangents. Directing also requires a kind of specificity and I don’t have it.
• My father retired to San Francisco, and I got a chance to know him and be around him. It’s always been someplace where everything changed for the better. It’s always been a home for me.
• Age makes you more confident. When you realize that it’s time now to just do things. When there’s not the pressure to perform on some level of expectations, there’s more to just explore.
• I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless  and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.
• All the new people you meet, it’s pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.
• You’ve got to be crazy! It’s too late to be sane, too late. You’ve got to go full tilt bozo… ‚ÄòCause you’re only given a little spark of madness… and if you lose that, you’re nothing
• How much more can you give? Other than, literally, open-heart surgery onstage? Not much. But the only cure you have right now is the honesty of going, this is who you are. I know who I am.
• I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy. Because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anybody else to feel like that.
• Sometimes, keeping track of people. It’s always a weird combination of worrying so much about the outside world, and not… you have to be more aware of the inner circle, the folks that matter.
• [when asked about what he was most thankful about]: Being alive. After heart surgery, you dig that part. Breath, family and friends are just amazing. Just to have a second shot is pretty great!
• We were romantics. We didn’t just read poetry. We let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared. Women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?
• Come on now! You kick out the gooks, the next thing you know, you have to kick out the chinks, the spicks, the spooks, the kikes and all that’s going to be left is a couple of brain-dead rednecks.
• You have this idea that you’d better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous. And then you realize, no, actually if you take a break people might be more interested in you.
• I was once walking in an airport and a woman came up to me and said, ‘Be zany!’. That’d be like walking up to Baryshikov and going, ‘Plie! Just do a plie! Do it! Do a releve right now! Lift my wife!’
• Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you’re licensed to do that. It’s an understood relationship. You walk on stage – it’s your job.
• I couldn’t imagine living the way I used to live. Now people come up to me from the drug days and go, ‘Hi, remember me?’ And I’m going, ‘No, did I have sex with you? Did I take a dump in your tool box?’
• [On creating] And you get that little endorphin buzz, it’s great. Why do you think Einstein looked like that? I don’t think he was going “You know this is some dynamite weed! It’s all relative you know.”
• The dramas for me allow me to explore more behavioral, deeper psychological things. But the comedies obviously allow me to explore the idea of really working off other people. I’m having more fun doing that.
• When you really do find a new idea or you’re in and it’s all working, that’s the gift. It’s like a musician when they hit a riff, that’s when you’re like all right, it’s mellow. You back off and just ride it.
• I want to do a movie, but it has to be the right movie, whether it’s independent or a studio movie. I’m much more open to being a supporting actor. At the age of 60, I’ll be second fiddle. Fine. I’m happy to do it.
• With mountain biking, it’s always that constant thing, negotiating singletrack, which I like, but for a road ride that rhythm is really Buddhist. When you get a good pedal stoke, it’s that thing of everything works.
• My mother’s idea of natural childbirth was giving birth without makeup. She was hyper-positive – the world is a wonderful place, rainbows and unicorns. If you said anything contrary to her, you were basically exiled.
• Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying “I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award.” The other is “You want fries with that?”.
• It’s a wonderful feeling when your father becomes not a God but a man to you — when he comes down from the mountain and you see he’s this man with weaknesses. And you love him as this whole being, not as a figurehead.
• It’s a wonderful feeling when your father becomes not a god but a man to you – when he comes down from the mountain and you see he’s this man with weaknesses. And you love him as this whole being, not as a figurehead.
• My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, “If you want to do that, fine.” When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, “Fine, but study welding just in case.”
• Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions … very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you’d see a Buddhist landscape fog.
• When your spinal cord freezes up, you’re vulnerable to everything. But he [Chrestopher Reese] was tough as nails. And he kept a great, kind of dark sense of humor about it, but also was able to accomplish amazing things.
• My favorite is when you go to Afghanistan and you meet the special forces guys, and they look like these heavily armed surfers. These guys are the best. You see guys dressed as full Afghans, but then wearing a Yankees hat.
• Avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason boys – to woo women – and in that endeavor, laziness will not do.
• We were totally opposite – me coming from the West Coast and a junior college, and him [ Christopher Reeve] from the hard-core Ivy League. He used to be the studly studly of all studlies, and I was the little fool ferret boy.
• After my training wheels, my first real bike was a Schwinn, and my first time out, I rode down a hill, didn’t know how to stop, and ran right into a tree. So, that was a nice experience … like realizing, oh, there are brakes!
• The essential truth is that sometimes you’re worried that they’ll find out it’s a fluke, that you don’t really have it. You’ve lost the muse or — the worst dread — you never had it at all. I went through all that madness early on.
• Finding a good script is really difficult and the scariest thing of all is when they say about a script that’s not right, “we will fix it..” It’s like before you get on the Titanic and you see a big hole. In process, it’s too late.
• Bicycles are pieces of art. You get that combination of kinetic engineering, but then, besides the welds, the paint jobs, the kind of the sculpture of it all is quite beautiful. Bikes have such great lines, and all different styles.
• The little idiosyncrasies that only I know about: that’s what made her my wife. Oh she had the goods on me too, she knew all my little peccadilloes. People call these things imperfections, but they’re not. Ah, that’s the good stuff!
• There was an old, crazy dude who used to live a long time ago. His name was Lord Buckley. And he said, a long time ago, he said, ‘People–they’r e kinda like flowers, and it’s been a privilege walking in your garden.’ My love goes with you.
• I thought I was fooling people. But it’s the old thing of ‘they say vodka doesn’t smell’. No, not until you sweat. And you just lie and lie and you think ‘I can deal with this’. And then you finally go, ‘No you can’t’. And then you give up.
• Even when I did my Broadway show, I did 15 minutes no one had seen before, because that was the night that Michael Jackson protested about Al Sharpton bailing on him. I said, “Wow, if that man bails on you, this must be really a lost cause.”
• People say that I’m a tree hugger, but I do a lot more than hug trees. I like having my drinking water without faecal matter, that’s really nice. Or acceptable levels of strychnine. I’m an air breather, I’ve gotten used to that over the years.
• I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.
• I stopped drinking when I had children because I wanted to be awake and aware. I did not want to be going, you know, daddy loves you and then drop my head on the table. I do not want to miss anything that they do or say. It is important to me.
• Life is fleeting. And if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day… make a wish and think of me.
• To be acknowledged for who and what I am, no more, no less. Not for acclaim, not for approval, but, the simple truth of that recognition. This has been the elemental drive of my existence, and it must be achieved, if I am to live or die with dignity.
• I enjoy that, and the idea of doing small things over a period of time. I think there are certain things you can do for water control in America, because that will be our most precious resource. In America, you pay more for water than you do for gas.
• Politically, I don’t care what party you’re from, offer a point of view and let’s see what happens and really debate the issues rather than use personal attacks. Really talk about it, talk about immigration, talk about education, talk about pollution.
• We’re dealing with fundamentalists… the Amish are fundamentalists, but they don’t try and hijack a carriage at needlepoint. And, if you’re ever in Amish country and you see a man with his hand buried in a horse’s ass, that’s a mechanic. Remember that.
• Things that I see in the future. I see… it could be quite incredible if we can master a few problems, like the air and the water thing might be nice. I see governments dissolving these barriers are all falling down for economic reasons. They’re all so interbound.
• If I asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell.
• I got to ninth grade and there was wrestling, and I went, ‘Wait a minute, this is fun.’ Basically, it was a chance for a small kid like me to get a chance to wail on another small kid. I went, ‘I love this.’ The discipline of it was great. Plus, I really started to be good at it.
• I can see it now: Osama bin Laden goes up to the pearly gates where George Washington comes out, starts beating him and is then joined by 70 other members of the Continental Congress. Osama will say, Hey, wait! Where are my 71 virgins? And George will reply It’s 71 Virginians, you asshole!
• For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I’m outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it’s hardest to see.
• We are surrounded by a lot of failed ecosystems; the moon being one, Mars, Venus. There¬ís evidence of water on Mars and rivers and it didn¬ít take. Also, we have planets to guard us like Jupiter and Saturn that take the hits of the comets. It is miraculous that we exist on this planet, that it took.
• I basically started performing for my mother, going, ‘Love me!’ What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection. When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.
• Ever since my children were born, the moment I looked at them I was crazy about them. Once I held them I was hooked. I am addicted to my children sir. I love them with all my heart and the idea of someone telling me I can’t be with them, I can’t see them everyday. Well, it’s like someone saying I can’t have air.
• I basically started performing for my mother, going, ‘Love me!’ What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection. When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.
• In truth I never really liked any of the heavy drugs, because normally my energy is up when I’m performing, and that’s about it. Cocaine is nothing new. It’s the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it is about getting numb and forgetting. I have a reverse metabolic reaction to the stuff.
• What’s wrong with death sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor. Death is not the enemy gentlemen. If we’re going to fight a disease, let’s fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference.
• Directing requires great discipline, that ability to be in and out at the same time. The great ones I’ve worked with are like generals. It’s a bit like a small war on that level. The great ones have that combination of freedom and control. I’m nowhere near that. There’s still so much to do as an actor. I have enough to explore with that.
• My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There’s an energy. It’s live theater. That’s why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn’t matter what size and what club, whether it’s 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It’s live, it’s symbiotic, you need it.
• I did an event in Washington, and it was like we lifted a sea.Immediately after [9/11], there was a stunned shock – kind of this feeling of “What do we do now?” I started performing, and there was a catharsis in the laughing. People started to be able to laugh again. Laughter can be many things – sometimes a medicine, sometimes a weapon, depending on.
• The idea of the industrial fishing affects everyone. Those factory ships play this game of hit and run with the international fishing limits, and somebody said it’s like hunting squirrels with a bulldozer. They pull everything in and they are only looking for certain types of fish and everything else dies and they just throw it back. It’s like chumming.
• A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it’s a strange thought – is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man’s heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man’s heart, kill the man, to get to the button.
• I’m fascinated by the new iPhone. I bought it and kept trying to use it in France. “Siri, what is a good restaurant?” (In a robotic voice.) “I’m sorry, Robin. I can’t give locations in France.” “Why, Siri?” “I don’t know.” It’s like she was upset with the French or something. “They seem to have an attitude I can’t understand. Should I look for Germans, Robin?”
• One day [when I relapsed] I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And then that voice – I call it the ‘lower power’ – goes, ‘Hey. Just a taste. Just one.’ I drank it, and there was that brief moment of ‘Oh, I’m okay!’ But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street.
• You look at the world and see how scary it can be sometimes and still try to deal with the fear. Comedy can deal with the fear and still not paralyze you or tell you that it’s going away. You say, OK, you got certain choices here, you can laugh at them and then once you’ve laughed at them and you have expunged the demon, now you can deal with them. That’s what I do when I do my act.
• My childhood was lonely. Both my parents were away a lot, working, and the maid basically raised me. And I think that’s where a lot of my comedy comes from. Not only was the maid very funny and witty, but when my mother came home I’d use humour to try and get her attention. If I made mommy laugh, then maybe everything would be all right. I think that’s where it [my comedy] all started.
• It’s just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn’t. What was he afraid of? “Everything. It’s just a general all-round arggghhh. It’s fearfulness and anxiety.” He added, “For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop.”
• My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ – I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said ‘don’t do any voices. Just read it as yourself.’ So I did, I just read it straight, and she said ‘that’s better.’
• It’s that idea that you can have one drink – and no you can’t. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, ‘Wow.’ Because you have that initial warm feeling going, ‘Oh, I remember this’. And your body does, too. And your body goes, ‘Yeah, so do I’.  Then the demon voice comes, ‘Yeah, so do I. You know what would be great? You know we bought a little bottle before? A full bottle would be wonderful’.

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On a lighter note

• Cricket is baseball on valium.
• When in doubt, go for the dick joke.
• Situations Burglars Furniture Homosexuals
• ..so many pedestrians, so little time…
• Decaf is like masturbating with an oven mitt!
• No man is an island; but some are peninsulas.
• Freud: If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother
• It’s hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut.
• Never go to Pluto, it’s a Mickey Mouse planet.
• Why do they call it rush hour if no one moves?
• I don’t do well with snakes, and I can’t dance.
• I don’t do well with snakes, and I can’t dance.
• Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’
• Women! Can’t live with ’em, can’t live with ’em!
• I like my wine like my women – ready to pass out.
• I’m sorry, if you were right, I’d agree with you.
• Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?
• His golf bag does not contain a full set of irons.
• I like my wine like my women — ready to pass out.
• I thought lacrosse was what you find in la church.
• If you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there.
• Why do they call it “rush hour” when nothing moves?
• We’re not laughing at you – we’re laughing near you.
• Gentiles are people who eat mayonnaise for no reason.
• I’m looking for Miss Right, or at least Miss Right Now
• Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready.’
• If we bury you ass up, I’ve got a place to park my bike.
• In the dictionary under redundant it says see redundant.
• Incoming is not the thing you want to hear at Christmas.
• Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six-foot-tall RAT!
• He makes a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float look ridiculous.
• Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.
• Death – to blink for an exceptionally long period of time.
• My first day as a woman and I am already having hot flushes
• Clouds are like boogers hanging on the nostrils of the moon.
• Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.
• If it’s the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?
• What’s right is what’s left if you do everything else wrong.
• Never fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.
• Running for senator in New York is like bobbing for piranhas.
• Whenever a big white man picks up a banjo, my cheeks tighten.
• You might say he was one taco short of a combination platter.
• Along with the Oscars, the Academy is giving out a green card.
• I went to rehab in wine country, just to keep my options open.
• Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
• We’ve had cloning in the South for years. It’s called cousins.
• We’ve had cloning in the South for years. It’s called cousins.
• Do you think God gets stoned? I think so… look at the platypus.
• That’s the formaldehyde. That’s why Granny’s so well-preserved.
• Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.
• Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you are making too much money.
• I love being backstage, or doing littler things like Blame Canada.
• I’m a very tolerant man, except when it comes to holding a grudge.
• Look at the walls of Pompeii. That’s what got the internet started.
• Do you think God gets stoned? I think so . . . look at the platypus.
• Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.
• Shakespeare said, “Kill all the lawyers.” There were no agents then.
• Keith Richards is the only man who can make the Osbournes look Amish.
• Before the Web, there was just one guy running around saying ‘I KNOW!’
• Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all of its students.
• You’ll notice that Nancy Reagan never drinks water when Ronnie speaks.
• Do you realize we’re only a heart attack away from Bush being president?
• Do you think Adam said to Eve, ‘Back up, I don’t know how big this gets.
• My religious background is that my mother is a Christian Dior Scientist.
• If I could light my own farts I could fly to the moon or at least Uranus.
• I wonder what chairs think about all day: “Oh, here comes another asshole.”
• Is it rude to Twitter during sex? To go “omg, omg, wtf, zzz”? Is that rude?
• You appreciate little things, like walks on the beach with a defibrillator.
• Ballet: men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.
• Being a famous print journalist is like being the best-dressed woman on radio.
• I had sex with a prostitute when I was 21, I was so bad, she gave me a refund.
• Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.
• You’ve got to give the guy some slack… he’s caught between Iraq and a hard-on.
• I went to rehab [for alcoholism] in wine country, just to keep my options open.
• Golf is a game where white men can dress up as black pimps and get away with it.
• I feel like Adam when he said to Eve, “Back up, I don’t know how big this gets.”
• The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.
• We had gay burglars the other night; they broke in and rearranged the furniture.
• Politics: Poli a Latin word meaning many and tics meaning bloodsucking creatures.
• When the media ask George W. Bush a question, he answers, ‘Can I use a lifeline?’
• I’m an Episcopal, which is Catholic Lite. It’s like same religion, half the guilt.
• People say satire is dead; it’s not dead; it’s alive and living in the White House.
• Divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
• Politics: Poli a Latin word meaning many; and “tics” meaning bloodsucking creatures.
• It’s five o’clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time.
• The Russians love Brooke Shields because her eyebrows remind them of Leonid Brezhnev.
• If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.
• They say our mothers really know how to push our buttons – because they installed them
• We Americans, we’re a simple people . . . but piss us off, and we’ll bomb your cities.
• Canadian money is also called the loony. How can you take an economic crisis seriously?
• The first time I ate organic whole-grain bread I swear it tasted like roofing material.
• Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like Nascar drivers. Then we know who owns them.
• Even evangelicals realize that Pinocchio’s father was a carpenter too. That’s the old joke.
• When my friends and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker.
• When the Williams sisters play tennis, it gets pretty hot. When they start grunting, I’m in.
• When you create you get a little endorphin rush. Why do you think Einstein looked like that?
• Golf is one of the few sports where a white man can dress like a black pimp and not look bad.
• Compassionate conservative. I don’t know what that is, it sounds like a Volvo with a gun rack.
• I play a lot of computer games. I love computer graphics. I’ve had Pixar in me for a long time.
• The entire world will be in nuclear war, and only the Swiss will be going, ‘what’s that noise?’
• Taking Viagra after open heart surgery is like a Civil War re-enactment with live ammo. Not good.
• Ah, yes, divorce . . . from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.
• I had my back waxed once by two women… and at one point they said, Do you mind if we take a break?
• My God, look at the size of this man! Quick! Tell the other villagers we’re going back to the boats!
• I think Nancy does most of his talking; you’ll notice that she never drinks water when Ronnie speaks.
• A friend is someone who listens to your bullshit, tells you that it’s bullshit, and listens some more.
• See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.
• God gave men a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.
• I had to stop drinking alcohol, because I used to wake up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass.
• You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.
• It’s great that we’ve got a compassionate conservative, but to me, that sounds like a Volvo with a gun rack.
• You know, you get that tattoo of barbed wire when you’re 18, but by the time you’re 80, it’s a picket fence.
• It’s great that we’ve got a compassionate conservative, but to me, that sounds like a Volvo with a gun rack.
• The French don’t have a baseball team. And if they did, there’d only be a left field, and no one would be safe.
• You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) ‘It’s the same sex all the time.’
• We were talking briefly about cocaine…yeah. Anything that makes you paranoid and impotent, give me more of that!
• If women ran the world there would be no wars. However every 28 days there would be some very intense negotiations.
• When you look at Prince Charles, don’t you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family?
• And if you want a linguistic adventure, go drinking with a Scotsman. Cause you can’t fucking understand them before.
• The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area ?
• What is this demilitarized zone? Whatever it is, I like it! Gets you on your toes better than a strong cup of cappuccino.
• You don’t need cocaine! There’s another way to get real high, and really mess your mind up, it’s called marathon running!
• The Second Amendment! It says you have the right to bear arms, or the right to arm bears, whatever the hell you want to do!
• Men may have wars, but women have their period. Men go off and kill each other, but women say nasty things, which is even better.
• Being a functioning alcoholic is kind of like being a paraplegic lap dancer: You can do it, just not as well as the others, really.
• I love running cross-country…You come up a hill and see two deer going, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ On a track I feel like a hamster.
• Texting and driving at the same time is like jerking off and juggling at the same time. Too many balls in the air, if you catch my drift.
• We have a president for whom English is a second language. He’s like ‘We have to get rid of dictators,’ but he’s pretty much one himself.
• There are three things in this world that you need: respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.
• They’re talking about partial nuclear disarmament, which is also like talking about partial circumcision – you either go all the way or forget it.
• [Imitating a Frenchman] Fuck you Americans! Uncultured, crass Americans! We hate all of you! Fu- the Germans are here! Hello Americans! We love you!
• A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills, no, no. They’d make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while.
• Now you can’t even carry a nail clipper on a plane. Are they afraid you’re going to go…”All right! Give me the plane or the b*tch loses her cuticle.” ?
• The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and yelling, ‘You want a piece of me?’
• In England, if you commit a crime, the police don’t have a gun and you don’t have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say ‘Stop, or I’ll say stop again.’
• Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.
• There’ll be cold fusion. We’ll actually be able to power our cars with our own feces. That’s right. The emissions problem will be a little intense, but just light a match.
• Age makes you more confident. When you realize that it’s time now to just do things. When there’s not the pressure to perform on some level of expectations, there’s more to just explore.
• When I was growing up they used to say, “Robin, drugs can kill you.” Now that I’m 58 my doctor’s telling me, “Robin, you need drugs to live.” I realize now that my doctor is also my dealer.
• I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, ‘Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?’ And I said, ‘Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?’
• Some people say Jesus wasn’t Jewish. Of course he was Jewish. Thirty years old, single, lives with his parents, come on. He works in his father’s business, his mom thought he was God’s gift, he’s Jewish.
• And some people say Jesus wasn’t Jewish. Of COURSE he was Jewish! 30 years old, single, lives with his parents, come on! He works in his father’s business, his mom thought he was God’s gift, he’s Jewish! Give it up!
• Look at airport security now. What started out as definite racial profiling is now where the computer picks a name. That’s why you get a seven-month-old getting a pat down. [Imitates a security officer.] “Check the diapers. They’re full.”
• A woman wouldn’t make a bomb that kills you. A woman would make a bomb that makes you feel bad for a while. That’s why there should be a woman President. There’d never be any wars, just every twenty-eight days there’d be very intense negotiations.
• I walked into my son’s room the other day, and he’s got four screens going at the same time. He’s watching a movie on one screen, playing a game on another, downloading something on this one, texting on that one, people say “He’s got ADD.” Fuck that, he’s multitasking.
• Here’s the best birth control in the whole world, if you really, if you have no pills, if you have no diaphragm, if you have no other form of contraception. Use it for ladies, if he comes at you with that little thing in his hand, just laugh at it. They can’t deal with it, OK, it’ll be gone.
• Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: “You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer.” Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, “It’s 5:00 in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time.”
• And the French! The French have a bomb too! Maybe they have the Michelin Bomb- ah! Only destroys restaurants under four stars! They are the one of the only people that still test their bombs! Where do they do it? In the Sahara, in the total wasteland? No, fuck off! In Tahiti! In paradise. Why? Because we’re French. Oh, look, a Greenpeace boat coming to protest- fuck off, I sink you.

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Lines from movies

• Make your life spectacular. I know I did. — Jack
• To live… to live would be an awfully big adventure. — Peter Pan
• A human life is just a heartbeat in heaven. — What Dreams May Come
• We get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds. — Good Will Hunting
• Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death. — Patch Adams
• Some men are born great; others have greatness thrust upon them. — Night at the Museum
• No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. — Dead Poets Society
• To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world. — Aladdin
• You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to. — Good Will Hunting
• You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome. — Patch Adams
• You must strive to find your own voice because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. — Dead Poets Society
• Well, good luck in the big city. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And if you can’t make it here, welcome to the club. — Robots
• I try to make sense of things. Which is why, I guess, I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be. — Bicentennial Man
• You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere even the stars. — August Rush
• You’re not perfect, sport. And let me save you the suspense: This girl you met, she isn’t perfect either. But the question is whether or not you’re perfect for each other. That’s the whole deal — that’s what intimacy is all about. — Good Will Hunting
• What’s wrong with death, sir? What are we so mortally afraid of? Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor? Death is not the enemy, gentleman. If we’re going to fight a disease, let’s fight one of the most terrible diseases of all, indifference. — Patch Adams
• You know, some parents, when they’re angry, they get along much better when they don’t live together. They don’t fight all the time, and they can become better people, and much better mummies and daddies for you. And sometimes they get back together. And sometimes they don’t, dear. And if they don’t, don’t blame yourself. Just because they don’t love each other anymore doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. There are all sorts of different families. — Mrs. Doubtfire

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