"Humor gives presidents the chance to be seen as warm, relaxed persons. Humor reaches out and puts its arm around the listener and says, 'I am one of you, I understand,' and implicitly it promises, 'I will do something about your problems.'"

"Dick Cheney has to be the kindliest attack dog ever."

"It always seems to someone outside the business that it is very difficult to write for a comedy show because it must be done quickly. Actually, it is much easier to write this humor than to do a joke or a show from scratch, because the audience knows the plot. Just mention what is going on and then deliver the punch line."

"A young person today has a nanosecond attention span, so whatever you do in a humor has to be short. Younger people do not wait for anything that takes time to develop. We're going totally to one-liners. Telling a joke is risk taking. Younger people are more insecure and not willing to put themselves on the line, so a quick one-liner is much safer."

"I remember when humor was gentle pokes. I used to call it 'arm around the shoulder' humor. Now they go for the jugular and they take no prisoners. It's mean, mean stuff."

"President Ford used humor a great deal."

"It's mandatory in this day and age to be considered to have a sense of humor and to demonstrate it. You're not paying me for a joke, You're paying me for the right joke."

"If somebody accuses you in a story of being a crook, you can demand that they prove it. But if a comic says it and you protest, people say, 'What's the matter, you can't take a joke?'"

"Humor is a marvelous communications tool, as Reagan has demonstrated so well. He has weathered many a storm that others might not have. With Reagan, people just say, 'There he goes again.' A sense of humor allows a president to back off a little from the tensions of the moment and take a calmer view of things."

"Anybody with a good sense of humor is one-up on their competition. We respond to somebody who has the ability to make us laugh. It's a bonding influence."

"If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters."

"George Bush has turned into the playboy of the Western world. He shows up at Chinese restaurants, at movies, at the Kennedy Center. He seems to be a totally relaxed, enjoy-the-moment kind of individual. He has shown a sense of playfulness that is very appealing. It shows he isn't overwhelmed by the overwhelming responsibilities he is taking on."

"Humor starts like a wildfire, but then continues on, smoldering, smoldering for years."

"Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure."

"As much as we admire all the characteristics of a Ronald Reagan, as soon as something goes wrong, people will hate those same characteristics."

"The cold winds sweeping the mountain-height, And pathless was the dreary wild, And ’mid the cheerless hours of night A mother wandered with her child: As through the drifting snows she press’d, The babe was sleeping on her breast."

"They saw a Dream of Loveliness descending from the train."

"The brave deserve the lovely—every woman may be won."

"Hans Breitmann gife a barty— Where ish dat barty now?"

"If all the world must see the world As the world the world hath seen, Then it were better for the world That the world had never been."

"They are detached from the language and inflated like little balloons."

"The music teacher came twice a week to bridge the awful gap between Dorothy and Chopin."

"Moral: When Wealth walks in at the Door, the Press Agent comes in through the Window."

""Whom are you?" he asked, for he had attended business college."

"Early to Bed and Early to Rise is a Bad Rule for any one who wishes to become acquainted with our most Prominent and Influential People."

"In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of entertainment."

"A Piker always has his entire Stock of Goods in the Show Window."

"R-E-M-O-R-S-E! Those dry Martinis did the work for me; Last night at twelve I felt immense, To-day I feel like thirty cents. My eyes are bleared, my coppers hot, I’ll try to eat, but I cannot. It is no time for mirth and laughter, The cold, gray dawn of the morning after."

"Moral: If it were not for the presents, an elopement would be preferable."

": It all depends."

": In uplifting, get underneath."

": Don't try to Account for Anything."

"She was a soprano of the kind often used for augmenting grief at a funeral."

"Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man."

"When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one."

"To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all."

"Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time."

"Why does a man take it for granted that a girl who flirts with him wants him to kiss her—when, nine times out of ten, she only wants him to want to kiss her?"

"When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to."

"Oh yes, there is a vast difference between the savage and the civilized man, but it is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast."

"A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor."

"What a man calls his "conscience" is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love."

"France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are "made in America"."

"Wedding: the point at which a man stops toasting a woman and begins roasting her."

"It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son—and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him."