Humorists From The United States

"If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States of America as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them."

"I want to resume the life of a shy person."

"If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?"

"Journalism is a good place for any writer to start — the retailing of fact is always a useful trade and can it help you learn to appreciate the declarative sentence. A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing."

"There is almost no marital problem that can't be helped enormously by taking off your clothes."

"To the cheater, there is no such thing as honesty, and to Republicans the idea of serving the public good is counterfeit on the face of it — they never felt such an urge, and therefore it must not exist."

"I think the most un-American thing you can say is, “You can't say that.”"

"The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk."

"Jesus said the meek would inherit the earth, but so far all we've gotten is Minnesota and North Dakota."

"Librarians, Dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God's green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is."

"Well, they're taking kids out of the country and sending them over there, National Guard kids and Army Reserve. They're sending kids who are barely prepared for this, and they're sending them over there to kill people, which is a serious thing. And to kill not terrorists, but to kill insurgents. I sort of find myself in agreement, uncomfortably, with Patrick Buchanan, who writes about this in his book, Where The Right Went Wrong. And writes that great powers, the way they skidded off the road, was getting involved in wars. That it's the role of great powers to stay out of wars."

"One day Donald Trump discovers that he is owned, lock, stock, and roulette wheel, by Lutheran Brotherhood, and must renegotiate his debt load with a committee of silent Norwegians who don't understand why anyone would pay more than $120 for a suit."

"Minnesota is a state of public-spirited and polite people, where you can get a good cappucino and eat Thai food and find any book you want and yet live on a quiet tree-lined street with a backyard and send your kids to public school. When a state this good hits the jackpot, it can only be an inspiration to everybody."

"To many Americans, whose only knowledge of the North Star State is that it is intensely cold and populated by Swedes and Holsteins, it will come as a surprise to wake up one morning in 2004 and read in the newspaper, "Half of U.S. Economy Now in Hands of Minnesota"."

"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose."

"The funniest line in English is “Get it?” When you say that, everyone chortles."

"To know and to serve God, of course, is why we're here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. What is the last word, then? Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids — all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people."

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."

"Cherish the Minnesota State Fair. Wherever you find beauty and simplicity and truth, know that there is a committee somewhere planning to improve it --- don't let them do it."

"Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze."

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted."

"Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough. Thank you for the rain. And for the chance to wake up in three hours and go fishing: I thank you for that now, because I won't feel so thankful then."

"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."

"dear boss i relay this information without any fear that humanity will take warning and reform"

"It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming."

"Where I'm from we don't trust paper. Wealth is what's here on the premises. If I open a cupboard and see, say, thirty cans of tomato sauce and a five-pound bag of rice, I get a little thrill of well-being — much more so than if I take a look at the quarterly dividend report from my mutual fund."

"It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my home town, out on the edge of the prairie..."

"God writes a lot of comedy, Donna; the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."

"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."

"I think if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world for all of us."

"there are more things twixt the vermiform appendix and nirvana than are dreamt of in thy philosophy horatio"

"demons and fishhooks he exclaimed i am losing my personal identity as a worm my individuality is melting away from me odds craw i am becoming part and parcel of this bloody robin so help me i am thinking like a robin and not like a worm any longer yes yes i even find myself agreeing that a robin must live i still do not understand with my mentality why a robin must live and yet i swoon into a condition of belief"

"amen said a beetle who had preceded him into the interior that is the way i feel myself is it not wonderful when one arrives at the place where he can give up his ambitions and resignedly nay even with gladness recognize that it is a far far better thing to be merged harmoniously in the cosmic all and this confortable situation in his midst so affected the marauding robin that he perched upon a blooming twig and sang until the blossoms shook with ecstacy he sang i have a good digestion and there is a god after all which i was wicked enough to doubt yesterday when it rained"

"a robin said to an angleworm as he ate him i am sorry but a bird has to live somehow the worm being slow witted could not gather his dissent into a wise crack and retort he was effectually swallowed before he could turn a phrase"

"breakfast breakfast i am full of breakfast and they are at breakfast in heaven they breakfast in heaven all s well with the world"

"i met a toad the other day by the name of warty bliggens he was sitting under a toadstool feeling contented he explained that when the cosmos was created that toadstool was especially planned for his personal shelter from sun and rain thought out and prepared for him"

"a little more conversation revealed that warty bliggens considers himself to be the center of the said universe the earth exists to grow toadstools for him to sit under the sun to give him light by day and the moon and wheeling constellations to make beautiful the night for the sake of warty bliggens"

"how beautiful is the universe when something digestible meets with an eager digestion how sweet the embrace when atom rushes to the arms of waiting atom"

"i asked him why is it that you are so greatly favored ask rather said warty bliggens what the universe has done to deserve me"

"Lake Wobegon, where smart doesn't count for so much. A minister has to be able to read a clock. At noon, it's time to go home and turn up the pot roast and get the peas out of the freezer."

"it is a cheering thought to think that god is on the side of the best digestion"

"there is bound to be a certain amount of trouble running any country if you are president the trouble happens to you but if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so that most of the trouble happens to other people"

"there is always a comforting thought in time of trouble when it is not our trouble"

"well well boss there is something to be said for the lyric and imperial attitude believe that everything is for you until you discover that you are for it sing your faith in what you get to eat right up to the minute you are eaten for you are going to be eaten"

"The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk."

"The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting."

"Smite, Smoot, Be rugged and rough, Smut if smitten Is front-page stuff."

"When smut's to be smitten Smoot will smite For G-d, for country, And Fahrenheit."

"Senator Smoot is an institute Not to be bribed with pelf; He guards our homes from erotic tomes By reading them all himself."

"Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, And that's what parents were created for."