“Language is the most elementary aspect to our humanness, probably. In addition to that, it's the embodiment, it's the apotheosis of the human experience, it's the way we summarize ourselves.”

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

“Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!'”

“Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage. I've always written in the long format, five, eight, 10-minute pieces rather than one-liners, so since writing books, the process hasn't changed much. A piece in my live routine can end up as part of one of my HBO specials, and it can also end up in one of the books.”

“Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard”

“Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.”

“You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live”

“They feed the crocodile in the hope that he will eat them last.”

“I never took a human life, I only sold the fellow the gun to take it with.”

“Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”

“I have carried a revolver; lots of us do, but they are the most innocent things in the world.”

“I am a subject,And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me,And therefore personally I lay my claimTo my inheritance of free descent.”

“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”

“We must recognise that we have a great inheritance in our possession, which represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

“The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.”

“He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.”

“A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he gives so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him.”