Whole phases of comedy have become empty; the comic rejoinder has become every man's tool.

An emotional man may possess no humor, but a humorous man usually has deep pockets of emotion, sometimes tucked away or forgotten.

There is scarcely an aspect of the American character to which humor is not related, few which in some sense it has not governed. ... It is a lawless element, full of surprises.

In a sense the whole American comic tradition had been that of social criticism.

In comedy, reconcilement with life comes at the point when to the tragic sense only an inalienable difference or dissension with life appears.

humor bears the closest relation to emotion, either bubbling up as from a deep and happy wellspring, or in an opposite fashion rising like a re-birth of feeling from dead levels after turmoil.

Unless and until we change, we cannot grow. What’s life without growth?

it is hard for me to believe that Cornelius Vanderbilt did not sense, at some point in time, in some dim billiard room of his unconscious, that when he built “The Breakers” he damned himself.

Do remember that one line does nothing; it is only in relation to another that it creates a volume.

Marriage isn't a passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.

The higher the hair, the closer to heaven.

I've talked to you on a number of occasions about the economic problems our nation faces, and I am prepared to tell you it's in a hell of a mess-we're not connected to the press room yet, are we?

You know, I'm blessed. 'Blessed' is a better way of saying 'rich.'

Very few politicians in Washington really represent the interests of many people.

Yogi Bear changed my life in ways that I can't explain because it's not a full feature on me.

All of your experience comes into play when you're composing.