Humorists From The United States

"I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic."

"A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight."

"Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it."

"The Devil: You want me to turn the air-conditioning on? Harry: You have air-conditioning in Hell? The Devil: Sure, it fucks up the ozone layer!"

"Doris: You have no values. With you it's all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm. Harry: Hey, in France I could run for office with that slogan, and win!"

"Harry: (On being called a self-hating Jew) Hey, I may hate myself, but not because I'm Jewish."

"Harry: Tradition is the illusion of permanence."

"Harry: No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you."

"Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!"

"Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened? Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken."

"Cookie: What are you sad about? Harry: I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm empty. Cookie: What do you mean? Harry: I'm frightened. I got no soul, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way: when I was younger it was less scary waiting for Lefty than it is waiting for Godot. Cookie: You lost me! Harry: You know that the universe is coming apart? You know about that? You know what a black hole is? Cookie: Yeah. That's how I make my living."

"Harry: Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing. Waitressing's gotta be the worst fucking job in the world."

"Harry: The most beautiful words in the English language aren't "I love you" but "it's benign.""

"Harry: You think the President of the United States wants to fuck every woman he meets?... Well, bad example."

"Harry: Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning."

"...years of insanity have made this guy crazy!"

"[about his daughter] I'd rather she grew up here than grew up as an orphan, you know I can tolerate anybody's orphans but my own."

"I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland."

"I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size."

"What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!"

"Taste my tuna casserole — tell me if I put in too much hot fudge."

"Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers."

"Hey listen — I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away."

"Death is a state of non-being. That which is not, does not exist. Therefore death does not exist. Only truth exists. Truth and beauty. Each is interchangeable, but are aspects of themselves. Er, what specifically did they say they had in mind for me?"

"Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline stewardess and some handcuffs."

"I sit in a London pub with Willie Maugham. I am distressed, because my first novel, Proud Emetic, has been coolly received by the critics. Its one favorable notice, in the Times, was vitiated by the last sentence, which called the book "a miasma of asinine cliches unrivalled in Western letters." Maugham explains that while this quote can be interpreted many ways, it might be best not to use it in the print ads."

"Is anything in nature actually "perfect" with the exception of my Uncle Hyman's stupidity? Who am I to demand perfection? I, with my myriad faults. I made a list of my faults, but could not get past: 1) Sometimes forgets his hat."

"My second wife was beautiful, but lacked real passion. I recall once, while we were making love, a curious optical illusion occurred and for a split second it almost looked as though she was moving."

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

"A typical "explained" incident is the one reported by Sir Chester Ramsbottom, on June 5, 1961, in Shropshire: "I was driving along the road at 2 A.M. and saw a cigar-shaped object that seemed to be tracking my car. No matter which way I drove, it stayed with me, turning sharply at right angles. It was a fierce, glowing red, and in spite of twisting and turning the car at high speed I could not lose it. I became alarmed and began sweating. I let out a shriek of terror and apparently fainted, but awoke in a hospital, miraculously unharmed." Upon investigation, experts determined that the "cigar-shaped object" was Sir Chester's nose. Naturally, all his evasive actions could not lose it, since it was attached to his face."

"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought — particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things."

"It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off."

"No wonder some people commit suicide! Why not end this absurdity? Why go through with this hollow charade called life? Why, except that somewhere within us a voice says, "Live." Always, from some inner region, we hear the command,"Keep living!" Cloquet recognized the voice; it was his insurance salesman. Naturally, he thought - Fishbein doesn't want to pay off."

"I had dated a woman briefly in the Eisenhower administration, and it was ironic to me, because I was trying to do to her what Eisenhower had been doing to the country for the last 8 years."

"I can't get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics."

"I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery."

"I don't recognize this committee's right to ask me these kind of questions! And furthermore, you can all go fuck yourselves."

"I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot."

"What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?"

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"Viscous and Sons had announced publication of The Annotated Poems of Sean O'Shawn, the great Irish poet, considered by many to be the most incomprehensible and hence the finest poet of his time. Abounding in highly personal references, an understanding of O'Shawn's work requires an intimate knowledge of his life, which, according to scholars, not even he had."

"A fine example of a demonstration was the Boston Tea Party, where outraged Americans disguised as Indians dumped British tea into the harbor. Later, Indians disguised as outraged Americans dumped actual British into the harbor. Following that, the British disguised as tea, dumped each other into the harbor. Finally, German mercenaries clad only in costumes from The Trojan Women leapt into the harbor for no apparent reason."

"For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartók records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys."

"Lovborg's work can be divided into three periods. First came the series of plays dealing with anguish, despair, dread, fear, and loneliness (the comedies); the second group focused on social change (Lovborg was instrumental in bringing about safer methods of weighing herring); finally, there were the six great tragedies written just before his death, in Stockholm, in 1902, when his nose fell off, owing to tension."

"The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep."

"And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and said, "How could thou doest such a thing?" And Abraham said, "But thou said-" "Never mind what I said," the Lord spake. "Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?" And Abraham grew ashamed. "Er-not really... no." "I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it." And Abraham fell to his knees, "See, I never know when you're kidding." And the Lord thundered, "No sense of humor. I can't believe it.""

"Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, "How insignificant I am!" Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman."

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

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

"Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage."